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Maximize ROI in financial services with Broadcom's VMware Cloud Foundation

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:23:54 GMT

Maximize ROI in financial services with Broadcom's VMware Cloud Foundation

By Steve Fusco, Head of Financial Services Industry for the VCF Division at Broadcom, leading technology initiatives in FinTech.

In the fast-paced, high-stakes world of financial services, cutting costs without compromising security, resilience, or scalability is a constant challenge. VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) delivers the solution—a complete private cloud platform that empowers financial institutions to modernize IT, streamline operations, and slash technology expenses.

The Cost Challenges in Financial Services IT

Financial services companies traditionally operate complex and siloed IT infrastructures, often struggling with:

High costs of maintaining legacy systems.
Rising operational expenditures (OpEx) due to inefficient resource utilization.
Increasing compliance costs with regulations such as DORA, GDPR, and Basel III.
Security concerns that demand expensive, redundant infrastructure.

VMware Cloud Foundation’s ROI-Driven Benefits

VCF helps financial institutions optimize their IT investments through several key advantages:

1) Reduction in Capital Expenditures (CapEx)

VCF consolidates infrastructure components—including compute, storage, networking, and security—into a single software-defined platform. By transitioning from traditional hardware-based solutions to a private cloud, financial firms can:

Optimize data center real estate, reducing footprint and power consumption.
Reduce upfront infrastructure investments, shifting from a capital-heavy model to a more flexible approach.
Eliminate costly proprietary hardware dependencies and leverage commodity x86 servers.

2) Lower Operational Expenditures (OpEx) Through Automation and Efficiency

With built-in automation, VCF significantly reduces manual IT processes, improving efficiency and reducing operational costs:

Automated Lifecycle Management: VCF automates software updates, patching, and infrastructure provisioning, reducing downtime and IT overhead.
Optimized Workload Placement: Intelligent workload balancing ensures efficient resource usage, minimizing overprovisioning and underutilization.
Policy-Based Security and Compliance: Built-in security policies reduce the costs associated with manual compliance checks and risk mitigation efforts.

3) Cloud Cost Optimization

Financial institutions increasingly adopt hybrid strategies to balance performance, security, and costs. VCF runs seamlessly on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, as well as across 100’s of VMware Cloud Service Providers offering:

Cost savings through workload mobility, allowing firms to move workloads to the most cost-effective cloud environment.
License portability, allowing customers to take their on prem VCF software to the cloud
Unified management across clouds, reducing administrative overhead and avoiding cloud sprawl.
Consistent infrastructure, eliminating the need for redundant cloud-specific tools and training.

4) Improved Security and Compliance Cost Management

Financial institutions must comply with stringent security and regulatory requirements. VCF delivers intrinsic security with:

Zero Trust Architecture, reducing the cost of security breaches and compliance penalties.
Micro-segmentation with NSX, eliminating the need for costly third-party security tools.
Automated compliance frameworks, lowering the costs associated with audits and manual reporting.

5) Accelerated Time to Market and Revenue Generation

The agility provided by VCF enables financial firms to develop and deploy new digital services faster. This translates to:

Faster product innovation with scalable, cloud-native applications.
Increased revenue opportunities by reducing the time-to-market for customer-facing financial services.
Reduced development costs through infrastructure-as-code capabilities and Kubernetes integration.

Quantifying the ROI of VMware Cloud Foundation

A structured analysis of VCF’s financial impact shows clear cost benefits:

30-40% reduction in infrastructure costs by consolidating and automating IT environments.
20-25% decrease in IT labor costs due to automation and self-service capabilities.
50-60% savings in cloud migration and operations through hybrid cloud efficiency.
Lower security and compliance expenses by reducing manual risk management efforts.

Source: IDC Business Value Whitepaper, August 2024, Forrester Study on VMware Cloud Foundation Operations and Automation, April 2024

Conclusion: Why Financial Services Firms Should Embrace VCF

VMware Cloud Foundation delivers unmatched value to the financial services industry. By cutting CapEx and OpEx, optimizing cloud costs, strengthening security, and driving digital transformation, VCF helps financial firms maximize IT ROI while staying ahead of the competition.

For institutions ready to future-proof their infrastructure, VCF offers a smart, cost-effective path forward. Ready to transform your IT strategy? Let’s make it happen with VMware Cloud Foundation.

Optimize your Microsoft Azure DaaS budget with the new Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard Subscription.

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:43:22 GMT

Optimize your Microsoft Azure DaaS budget with the new Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard Subscription.

Omnissa announces Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure Standard Subscription, a cost-effective and scalable desktop as a service (DaaS) offering designed to simplify virtual desktop and application delivery. The offering allows customers to use Horizon Cloud on Azure to deliver optimized single-session VDI desktops or multi-session RDSH (Remote Desktop Session Host) desktops and apps, while streamlining management and modernizing app delivery. Furthermore, Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure offers a superior, personalized end-user experience that boosts productivity and satisfaction with end-users. Let’s take a closer look.

Flexible Desktop and App Configurations

Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard Subscription allows IT to choose between single-session and multi-session configurations for VDI and RDSH. Single-session VDI gives each user a dedicated virtual machine, which provides efficient resource utilization, personalized experience, and enhanced security. For single-session VDI, IT can offer end users dedicated/persistent and floating/non-persistent desktops. Multi-session, also known as RDSH, provides both published desktops and published applications that are available as shared sessions from a virtual machine, allowing multiple users to share resources leading to reduced costs.

Streamlined Management with the Horizon Control Plane

Managing virtual desktops and apps in any cloud and across data centers can be challenging, but the cloud-hosted Horizon Control Plane simplifies it with a suite of next-gen SaaS services for unified management of Horizon deployments, including Horizon Cloud on Azure. The Horizon Control Plane provides various management services like app and image management, power management, unified brokering, and monitoring.

The Image Management Service automates the image publishing process, making it easier to replicate and scale images across single and multi-cloud environments.
Dynamic power management automatically adjusts resources based on demand, reducing compute costs. Instead of paying for desktops based on powered-on capacity, regardless of if they’re being used, IT can control how desktops are provisioned and deprovisioned based on user load or schedules.
Unified brokering allows users to seamlessly access virtual desktops and apps through a single URL, using intelligent routing that considers available capacity, location, and user preferences.
For monitoring, Omnissa Intelligence (included with this Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard offering) and Experience Management for Horizon (available as an add-on to this Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard offering) provide IT teams with insights into end-user experiences, helping identify issues and improve performance.

These are just some of the comprehensive set of services on the Horizon Control Plane that help IT teams simplify management of their Horizon environments.

Modern App Delivery with App Volumes

Traditional app lifecycle management in virtual desktop and app environments is often complex and time-consuming. To reduce complexity and time, Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard Subscription includes App Volumes and Apps on Demand, available directly from the Horizon Control Plane. App Volumes improves application delivery by allowing IT to package applications once and deploying them across Horizon 8, Horizon Cloud, and even other virtual desktop and app solutions. IT can use App Volumes to separate app management from OS management and therefore reduce the number of OS images being managed. App compatibility is no longer an issue as App Volumes supports diverse app formats that can be delivered anywhere. With Apps on Demand , IT can further reduce lifecycle management, time and infrastructure costs by delivering apps to users when they need them, not if they need them.

Exceptional User Experience

To provide a great user experience, Horizon Cloud on Azure desktop and app experience can be optimized via the Blast Protocol, personalized with Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM), and accessed using Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub.

With the Blast Protocol, end users get an immersive display experience with high-fidelity visuals, high quality audio and video, robust GPU support, and security features like screen capture blocking. Thousands of peripherals are supported to meet industry-specific requirements, like credit card readers for retail or tap-and-go secure sign-in readers for healthcare.
DEM simplifies profile management and personalization through dynamic policy configuration, combining the ease of managing application and persona settings while providing consistent and personal desktop experiences.
Users can access desktops and apps directly from Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub, which offers a unified app catalog with SSO to published apps, packaged apps, SaaS apps, virtual desktops, and web links.

Figure 1. Horizon Cloud on Azure entitlement is available through various options, including the new Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard Subscription offering.

As a DaaS solution managed by Omnissa and deployed on Azure, Horizon Cloud on Azure shifts the responsibility of infrastructure management to Omnissa, while providing the desktop and app scalability needed to grow with ease. While several options are available to get entitlement to Horizon Cloud on Azure, the new Horizon Cloud on Azure Standard Subscription is a great entry point to get started with DaaS on Azure. At just $9 user/month (with an option also available for concurrent users) customers can take advantage of all the services in the Horizon Control Plane to streamline management, leverage App Volumes to reduce app management costs, and provide exceptional experience to their users.

Omnissa Horizon and VMware vSphere Foundation for VDI combined offerings explained

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 11:44:35 GMT

Omnissa Horizon and VMware vSphere Foundation for VDI combined offerings explained

What are the Omnissa Horizon and VVF for VDI “combined offerings”?

Omnissa and Broadcom have agreed to have Omnissa sell the “combined offering” versions of Omnissa Horizon SaaS and Horizon Term licenses bundled with VMware vSphere Foundation for VDI (which includes vSphere, vCenter, and vSAN). These combined offerings are available in both Named User and Concurrent User license metrics and for 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year terms. For the vSphere Foundation for VDI software in the combined offering, customers may use vSphere as needed in support of the licensed Horizon user count.

What is included in VVF for VDI?

VVF for VDI includes:

vSphere Enterprise Plus (per user)
vCenter Standard
vSAN Enterprise (100 GiB of trial capacity per processor core)

What if I am a legacy Horizon customer and now have a renewal due? Will I get the new combined offering?

Customers will get the new entitlement to VVF for VDI at the time of renewal. Expansion licenses that customers purchase will be fulfilled with VVF for VDI and may be combined into their existing vSphere and vSAN deployments.

What if my renewal is not due for several months or longer? Can I still get access to the entitlement to VVF for VDI?

No, you will not receive access to the entitlement for VVF for VDI until you purchase it at the time of your renewal. Until your next renewal, you may continue to use your existing entitlements to vSphere and vSAN Advanced, depending on the edition you purchased.

How do I get VVF for VDI license keys?

Upon order fulfillment, Broadcom will send customers an email with instructions to access their license keys in the Broadcom Support Portal. The keys provided for vSphere will support version 8.0U3, but customers can downgrade their license keys if needed to support earlier versions. For vSphere 8 and earlier versions, customers will receive vSphere Term keys. Customers should contact Omnissa support for all issues with Horizon combined offerings, including VVF for VDI. For more information, read this KB article .

Can Aria be used in service of Horizon?

VVF for VDI does not contain a license for Aria Ops Suite. However, if a customer has entitlement to Aria through ownership of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF), or VMware Cloud Foundation Edge (VCFE), that Aria entitlement may be used to monitor Horizon workloads, per the Broadcom terms referenced in the Specific Program Documentation for VCF , VVF , and VCFE .

Embracing Change with VMware vSphere Foundation

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 14:49:24 GMT

Embracing Change with VMware vSphere Foundation

By Himanshu Singh, Director of Product Marketing for VMware's Cloud Infrastructure business.

VMware vSphere Foundation is a game-changer for data centers, offering a comprehensive and unified foundation for both virtual machines and containers. It's designed to help businesses optimize their infrastructure, improve performance, and simplify IT management. By adopting vSphere Foundation, you can unlock a multitude of benefits, including:

Optimized costs: Achieve up to 20% lower hardware expenses through intelligent resource optimization and capacity management.
Enhanced performance: Experience a 50% reduction in mean time to resolution and swift remediation for any issues that may arise.
Minimized downtime: Proactive insights and automation capabilities lead to a 93% decrease in unplanned downtime, ensuring business continuity.
Simplified management: Manage both virtual machines and containers seamlessly through an integrated self-service platform with embedded Kubernetes.
Future-proof infrastructure: Embrace the evolving IT landscape with a foundation that readily adapts to new technologies and demands.

VMware vSphere Foundation goes beyond mere virtualization, providing a comprehensive platform that empowers businesses to thrive in the digital age. To delve deeper into the technical specifications and discover the full potential of this revolutionary solution, visit the original blog post here .

VMware by Broadcom Dramatically Simplifies Offer Lineup and Licensing Model

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 08:29:13 GMT

VMware by Broadcom Dramatically Simplifies Offer Lineup and Licensing Model

By Krish Prasad, Senior Vice President and General Manager, VMware Cloud Foundation Division

Broadcom’s close of the VMware acquisition has brought together two engineering-first, innovation-centric teams to help build the world's leading infrastructure technology company. Together, we are well-positioned to enable global enterprises to embrace private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments. And we are committed to driving customer success through faster innovation, a simpler portfolio and a robust ecosystem.

Over the past two years, VMware has been on a journey to simplify its portfolio and transition from a perpetual to a subscription model to better serve customers with continuous innovation, faster time to value, and predictable investments.

Today, VMware by Broadcom has reached a new milestone with the announcement of the following:

A dramatic simplification of our product portfolio that allows customers of all sizes to gain more value for their investments in VMware solutions. The portfolio simplification across all VMware by Broadcom divisions stems from customer and partner feedback over the years telling us our offers and go-to-market are too complex.
Complete the transition of all VMware by Broadcom solutions to subscription licenses, with the end of sale of perpetual licenses, Support and Subscription (SnS) renewals for perpetual offerings, and hybrid purchase program/subscription purchase program (HPP/SPP) credits beginning today (effective dates will vary). Additionally, we are introducing a bring-your-own-subscription license option, providing license portability to VMware validated hybrid cloud endpoints running VMware Cloud Foundation.

Read more about this on VMware by Broadcom's official website here .

Traffic Capture on Tier - O Getaway Uplink

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 17:38:29 GMT

This post will walk you through the steps needed to capture the incoming/outgoiing traffic on Tier0 gateway uplink level. The result will be a PCAP file that can be imported into a packet analyzer such as Wireshark for further troubleshooting and analysis.

Step 1: Collect ID of the Tier0 Uplink Interface

First you have to SSH to the NSX-T edge node running the active SR using admin credentials, then switch the context to the VRF corresponding to the Tier0 SR.

Now you are in the right context, you need to identify the ID of the Tier0 SR uplink interface.

The Tier0 SR uplink interface ID: 684b9ba1-c298-41cd-976f-8d5f91cabe4f

This is the interface where you will capture the incoming & outgoing traffic.

Step 2: Define and Start Capture Session

Next you need to define a new capture session, interface (the ID that we collected at step 1) and direction of traffic (dual means both incoming and outgoing traffic) that you want to trace. Note that before running the below command, you have to exit the VRF mode:

Let’s start the capture session now by capturing 50 packets and save them into a PCAP file:

The capture in done successfully. Let’s delete the capture session and make sure no capture sessions are running on the NSX-T edge node.

To check the current running capture sessions:

Let’s delete the capture session “1” that we created.

Step 3: Copy the PCAP file and analyze it

By default, the generated PCAP file will be stored in the following directory on the NSX-T edge node:

You can use WinSCP to connect to the edge node and copy the .pcap file to your machine.

Finally, you can open the pcap fil using WireShark and analyze it.

Cross Cluster Workload Migration within the same clastic PVDC

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 17:38:29 GMT

I came into a scenario recently where we need to decommission a cluster from a provider PVDC where that cluster also contains workloads already provisioned by the customer through the VCD tenant portal. In order to do so, we need to migrate a bunch of workloads for an organization from the orgVDC under workload cluster 1 knowing that both workload cluster 1 and cluster 2 are part of an elastic PVDC spanning both clusters.

There may be other ways to do the migration but I want to share my simple procedure that I followed which may help others in case the hit the same use case. Always keep it simple!

1. Disable Cluster 2 resource pool under the PVDC

First of all and as we want to decommission workload cluster 2, we need to disable cluster 2 as a resource pool under the PVDC so that no new VMs can be provisioned by the customer onto that cluster and thereby introduce new VMs to be migrated in addition to the existing ones.

Note: This will not affect the running VMs under cluster 2. They will remain running but we are only disabling the capability for the customer to provision new VMs to the cluster through VCD.

Login to the provider portal then navigate to Resources > Cloud Resources > Provide PVDCs. Select your PVDC then navigate to Resource Pools . Select your cluster Dand click Disable.

2. Disable the VM/Host rule of cluster 2 Placement Policy

Before we can migrate the workloads, we need to disable the VM/Host rule of the placement policy of cluster 2. When the rule is enabled, the provisioned VMs under cluster 2 can run only on cluster 2 ESXI nodes and can’t be migrated to cluster 1.

Select your cluster and navigate to Configure > Configuration > VM/Host Rules . Select your placement policy affinity rule, click Edit and disable it.

3. Migrate workloads from cluster 2 to cluster 1

We have a VM provisioned through VCD portal with a selected placement policy to run on workload cluster 2. I will illustrate the procedure by migrating this single VM but the same can be followed for the other workloads.

As we have a shared storage spanning both workload clusters, we have only to vMotion the workload (from compute perspective) from cluster 2 to cluster 1. To do so, right click on the VM choose Migrate .

Select Change compute resource only, and click Next .

Select Resource Pools , then choose the resource pool for the same OVDC under cluster 1.

Proceed with the default selections, Next > Next > Finish .

Now the VM is migrated, you can notice that it is running under the tenant OVDC in cluster 1.

4. Change the placement policy of the migrated workload

Login to the tenant portal and check the status of migrated VM. You will notice a warning message stating that the VM is non-compliant with the compute placement policy.

This is expected because the VM was originally provisioned to cluster 2 and the placement policy valued attached to the VM is still cluster 2 policy although the VM is running now under cluster 1 from vSphere perspective.

To comply with the compute policy from VCD perspective, we need to change the placement policy of the VM.

Navigate to Data Centers > Virtual Machines . Click on the VM and navigate to Hardware > Compute . You will notice that the placement policy is still pointing to cluster 2.

Click on Edit and change the placement policy to point to cluster 1.

Click Save .

You will notice now that the placement policy is changed and the warning message disappeared meaning that the VM is compliant again.

We are done with the VM migration completely. Notice that this was a live migration without any downtime.