Improving Uptime and Operational Efficiency with VMware Cloud Foundation Operations

VMware commissioned Forrester Consulting to interview four representatives and conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study to better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with VMware Cloud Foundation Operations.¹ For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization.

Since VMware Cloud Foundation Operations has been available for over five years, this study primarily emphasizes the value and benefits of ongoing usage and upgrades rather than the advantages of an initial deployment. TEI studies cannot be directly compared across different products or years, as each study focuses on unique customer interviews and experiences. However, those interested in the TEI of an initial deployment scenario for VMware Cloud Foundation Operations can refer to the March 2019 version.

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) offers a comprehensive platform for building and managing private or hybrid cloud environments. As part of VCF, Cloud Operations provides a cloud-based management platform for proactive IT operations. It unifies visibility across private, hybrid, and multi-cloud deployments, empowering organizations to identify and address potential issues before they impact business continuity.

INVESTMENT DRIVERS

Interviewees faced several challenges before implementing VMware Cloud Foundation Operations, much of which stemmed from their legacy infrastructure and monitoring tools. While some interviewees had earlier versions of VMware Cloud Foundation Operations, their organizations were not utilizing it exclusively or to its full potential. These organizations struggled with limited visibility into emerging infrastructure issues, negatively affecting uptime. Additionally, interviewees shared that they were unable to effectively manage and allocate capacity, resulting in them needlessly refreshing hardware.

The interviewees searched for a solution that could:

• Enable comprehensive visibility across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure, regardless of the operating system.
• Seamlessly integrate with existing toolsets, minimizing the need for extensive training and onboarding.
• Showcase advanced capabilities like scenario planning and intelligent issue remediation.

VMware cloud foundation operations Features

The interviewees’ organizations chose to invest in VMware Cloud Foundation Operations for the following reasons:

• Offered a unified monitoring interface that covered all operating systems and infrastructure modes.
• Seamlessly integrated with existing infrastructure tools and leveraged the expertise of the team.
• Provided comprehensive services and global customer support.

Key Results

The results of the investment for the interviewees’ organizations include:

• Increased uptime from 99.4% to over 99.9%. Most interviewees reported significant improvements in their capacity to manage and minimize unplanned downtime. Through improved visibility into system health and availability, as well as timely alerts regarding disk space, CPU usage, and overall capacity management, the interviewed organizations were able to effectively reduce instances of unexpected downtime. Furthermore, teams were empowered to proactively manage hosts and potentially extend the lifespan of infrastructure, thereby delaying the need for costly refresh cycles. Over the course of the three-year analysis, the improved uptime is worth a risk-adjusted $12.2 million (PV) to the composite organization.
• 20% reduction in issue-resolution workload, and 50% efficiency gain in team coordination. Interviewees noted that VMware Cloud Foundation Operations enabled them to reduce the overall number of workload issues encountered and expedited the resolution of any remaining issues. The improved visibility and data access significantly streamlined coordination and planning meetings, saving employee time. Over three years, the reduced time to resolution is worth $720 thousand to the composite organization.
• Average operational efficiency gain of 77%. With VMware Cloud Foundation Operations, the interviewed organizations were able to streamline reporting and chargeback modeling tasks. Interviewees also noted that they were able to reduce the amount of time required to upgrade applications and other parts of their infrastructure. The composite organization reduces the amount of time spent on managing upgrades, setting up chargeback models, and preparing infrastructure reports by over 75%. In total, these time savings are worth $34 thousand to the composite organization over three years.
• Eliminated storage monitoring software costs. The interviewees shared that VMware Cloud Foundation Operations enabled them to decommission now-redundant storage monitoring tools, leading to cost savings of $1.14 million during the three-year analysis.
• Reduced hardware costs. Interviewees noted that VMware Cloud Foundation Operations improved their overall infrastructure planning, which helped them optimize their hardware spending. With Cloud Operations’ capacity management capabilities, the interviewees were able to avoid unnecessary purchases of hardware during urgent requests for additional capacity. Over three years, the composite organization is able to reduce its hardware spending by $1.03 million.

Appendix A: Endnotes