By: Trend Micro June 04, 2024 Read time: 3 min (709 words)
In its ninth year, the annual SANS Threat Hunting Survey delves into global organizational practices in threat hunting, shedding light on the challenges and adaptations in the landscape over the past year.
The 2024 survey highlights a growing maturity in threat-hunting methodologies, with a significant increase in organizations adopting formal processes.
This marks a shift towards a more standardized approach in cybersecurity strategies despite challenges such as skill shortages and tool limitations. Additionally, the survey reveals evolving practices in sourcing intelligence and an increase in outsourcing threat hunting, raising questions about the efficiency and alignment with organizational goals. This summary encapsulates the essential findings and trends, emphasizing the critical role of threat hunting in contemporary cybersecurity frameworks.
Participants
Figure 1: Survey demographics
This year’s survey attracted participants from a wide array of industries, with cybersecurity leading at 15% and 9% of respondents from the manufacturing sector, which has recently faced significant challenges from ransomware attacks. The survey participants varied in organization size, too, ranging from those working in small entities with less than 100 employees (24%) to large corporations with over 100,000 employees (9%).
The respondents play diverse roles within their organizations, highlighting the multidisciplinary nature of threat hunting. Twenty-two percent are security administrators or analysts, while 11% hold business manager positions, showcasing a balance between technical, financial, and personnel perspectives in threat-hunting practices.
However, the survey does note a geographical bias, with 65% of participants coming from organizations based in the United States, which could influence the findings related to staffing and organizational practices, though it’s believed not to affect the technical aspects of threat hunting.
Significant findings and implications
The survey examines the dynamic landscape of cyber threats and the strategies deployed by threat hunters to identify and counteract these risks. Notably, it sheds light on the prevalent types of attacks encountered:
Business email compromise (BEC): BEC emerges as the foremost concern, with approximately 68% of respondents reporting its detection. BEC involves malicious actors infiltrating legitimate email accounts to coerce individuals into transferring funds through social engineering tactics.
Ransomware: Following closely behind is ransomware, detected by 64% of participants. Ransomware operations encrypt data and demand payment for decryption, constituting a significant threat in the cybersecurity landscape.
Tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs): The survey found that TTPS are employed in different attack scenarios. In ransomware incidents, threat actors often deploy custom malware, target specific data for exfiltration, utilize off-the-shelf tools like Cobalt Strike, attempt to delete traces, and sometimes resort to physical intrusion into target companies.
Evolving threat-hunting practices
SANS also found that organizations have significantly evolved their threat-hunting practices, with changes in methodologies occurring as needed, monthly, quarterly, or annually.
Outsourced threat hunting is now used by 37% of organizations, and over half have adopted clearly defined methodologies for threat hunting, marking a notable advancement.
Additionally, 64% of organizations formally evaluate the effectiveness of their threat-hunting efforts, showing a decrease in those without formal methodologies from 7% to 2%. The selection of methods is increasingly influenced by available human resources, recognized by 47% of organizations.
The chief information security officer (CISO) plays a key role in developing threat-hunting methodologies, with significant involvement in 40% of cases.
Benefits of better threat-hunting efforts
Significant benefits from threat hunting include improved attack surface and endpoint security, more accurate detections with fewer false positives, and reduced remediation resources.
About 30% of organizations use vendor information as supplemental threat intelligence, with 14% depending solely on it. Incident response teams’ involvement in developing threat-hunting methodologies rose to 33% in 2024, indicating better integration within security functions.
Challenges such as data quality and standardization issues are increasing, underscoring the complexities of managing expanding cybersecurity data.
Final thoughts
The SANS 2024 Threat Hunting Survey highlights the cybersecurity industry’s evolution and focuses on improving cyber defense capabilities. Organizations aim to enhance threat hunting with better contextual awareness and data tools, with 51% looking to improve response to nuanced threats.
Nearly half (47%) plan to implement AI and ML to tackle the increasing complexity and volume of threats. There’s a significant planned investment in both staff and tools, with some organizations intending to increase their investment by over 10% or even 25% in the next 24 months, emphasizing threat hunting’s strategic importance.
However, a small minority anticipate reducing their investment, hinting at a potential shift in security strategy.
By: Trend Micro June 18, 2024 Read time: 4 min (1135 words)
The latest MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations pitted leading managed detection and response (MDR) services against threats modeled on the menuPass and BlackCat/AlphV adversary groups. Trend Micro achieved 100% detection across all 15 major attack steps with an 86% actionable rate for those steps— balancing detections and business priorities including operational continuity and minimized disruption.
Trend took part in the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations for managed detection and response (MDR) services—building on a history of strong performance in other MITRE Engenuity tests. Key to that ongoing success is our platform approach, which provides high-fidelity detection of early- and mid-chain tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) enabling quick and decisive counteractions before exfiltration or encryption can occur. Of course, we know real-world outcomes matter more than lab results. That’s why we’re proud to support thousands of customers worldwide with MDR that brings the most native extended detection and response (XDR) telemetry, leading threat intelligence from Trend™ Research and our Trend Micro™ Zero-Day Initiative™ (ZDI) under a single service to bridge real-time threat protection and cyber risk management.
The evaluation focused on our Trend Service One™ offering, powered by Trend Vision One, which included XDR, endpoint and network security capabilities. The results proved Trend Micro MDR is a great alternative to managed services that rely on open XDR platforms or managed SIEM platforms.
Our detection of adversarial activity early in the attack chain combined with our platform’s deeply integrated native response capabilities enables rapid mean-time-to-detect (MTTD) and mean-time-to-respond (MTTR). At the same time, comprehensive visibility and protection gives security teams greater confidence.
Full detection across all major steps
This most recent MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations for Managed Services featured attacks modeled on the real-world adversaries menuPass and BlackCat/AlphV. These took the form of advanced persistent threats (APTs) designed to dwell in the network post-breach and execute harmful activity over time.
Trend MDR achieved full detection coverage, reflecting and reinforcing our achievements in cybersecurity:
100% across all major attack steps
100% for enriched detail on TTPs
86% actionable rate for major steps
How Trend MDR delivers
To put its MDR evaluation in context, MITRE Engenuity conducted a survey prior to testing, gaining insights into market perceptions and expectations of managed cybersecurity services. More than half (58%) of respondents said they rely on managed services either to complement their in-house SOC or as their main line of defense. For companies with fewer than 5,000 employees, that tally increased to 68%.
Our MDR service at Trend helps meet those needs by combining AI techniques with human threat expertise and analysis. We correlate data and detect threats that might otherwise slip by as lower severity alerts. Our experts prioritize threats by severity, determine the root cause of attacks, and develop detailed response plans.
XDR is a key technology to achieve these security outcomes, extending visibility beyond endpoints to other parts of the environment where threats can otherwise go undetected: servers, email, identities, mobile devices, cloud workloads, networks, and operational technologies (OT).
Integrated with native XDR insights is deep, global threat intelligence. Native telemetry enables high-fidelity detections, strong correlations and rich context; global threat intelligence brings highly relevant context to detect threats faster and more precisely. Combined with a broad third-party integration ecosystem and response automation across vectors, Trend Vision One introduces a full-spectrum SOC platform for security teams to speed up investigations and frees up time to focus on high-value, proactive security work including threat hunting and detection engineering. In some cases, smaller teams rely on our MDR service completely for their security operations.
With Trend Vision One, teams have access to a continuously updated and growing library of detection models—with the ability to build custom detection models to fit their unique threat models.
Proven strength in delivering higher-confidence alerts
Security and security operations center (SOC) teams are inundated with detection alerts and noise. Our visibility and analytics performance achieves a finely tuned balance between providing early alerts of critical adversarial tactics and techniques and managing alert fatigue to improve the analyst experience. Our MDR operations team takes advantage of the platform advantage and knows only to alert customers when critical.
In each simulation during the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations, there was no scenario where menuPass and BlackCat/AlphV attack attempts successfully breached the environment without being detected or disrupted.
It’s important to note that MITRE Engenuity doesn’t rank products or solutions. It provides objective measures but no scores. Instead, since every service and solution functions differently, the evaluation reveals areas of strength and opportunities for improvement within each offering.
About the attacks
The menuPass threat group has been active since at least 2006. Some of its members have been associated with the Tianjin State Security Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of State Security and with the Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Company. It has targeted healthcare, defense, aerospace, finance, maritime, biotechnology, energy, and government targets—and in 2016–17 went after managed IT service providers. BlackCat is Rust-based ransomware offered as a service and first observed in November 2021. It has been used to target organizations across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe in a range of sectors.
Putting our service to the test
In cybersecurity, actions speak louder than words. Our significant investment in research and development extend to our MDR service offering to support thousands of enterprises around the world.
We’re dedicated to continuous iteration and improvement to equip security teams with cutting-edge solutions to keep their organizations safe. As we evolve our solutions, MITRE Engenuity continues to evolve its evaluation approach as well. The category of “actionability” was new in this evaluation, determining if each alert provided enough context for the security analyst to act on. The actionability testing category is an area we’re investing in heavily from a process and technology standpoint to ensure contextual awareness, prioritization, and intelligent guidance are included while maintaining manageable communication cadences and minimizing false positive alerts.
Overall, areas for improvement surfaced through the test scenarios have been resourced with dedicated engineering and development efforts to match the high standard we hold ourselves to-and that our users expect. We are pleased to see our MDR service demonstrated a strong balance of detection capabilities across the entire attack chain, both within the service itself and embedded in the underlying Trend Vision One platform.
We invite all our MDR customers to take a look at the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations for Managed Services to better understand the strength of their defensive posture, and to come to us with any questions or thoughts.
Next steps
For more on Trend MDR, XDR, and other related topics, check out these additional resources:
At Trend, we are dedicated to continuous iteration and improvement to equip security teams with cutting-edge solutions to keep their organizations safe. These relevant areas of improvement surfaced through the scenarios have been resourced with dedicated engineering and development efforts to match the high standard we hold ourselves to and which our users expect.
There’s a natural human desire to avoid threatening scenarios. The irony, of course, is if you hope to attain any semblance of security, you’ve got to remain prepared to confront those very same threats.
As a decision-maker for your organization, you know this well. But no matter how many experts or trusted cybersecurity tools your organization has a standing guard, you’re only as secure as your weakest link. There’s still one group that can inadvertently open the gates to unwanted threat actors—your own people.
Security must be second nature for your first line of defense #
For your organization to thrive, you need capable employees. After all, they’re your source for great ideas, innovation, and ingenuity. However, they’re also human. And humans are fallible. Hackers understand no one is perfect, and that’s precisely what they seek to exploit.
This is why your people must become your first line of defense against cyber threats. But to do so, they need to learn how to defend themselves against the treachery of hackers. That’s where security awareness training (SAT) comes in.
The overall objective of an SAT program is to keep your employees and organization secure. The underlying benefit, however, is demonstrating compliance. While content may differ from program to program, most are generally similar, requiring your employees to watch scripted videos, study generic presentations, and take tests on cyber “hygiene.” At their core, SAT programs are designed to help you:
Educate your employees on recognizing cybersecurity risks such as phishing and ransomware
Minimize your organization’s exposure to cyber threats
Maintain regulatory compliance with cyber insurance stipulations
These are all worthwhile goals in helping your organization thrive amidst ever-evolving cyber threats. However, attaining these outcomes can feel like a pipe dream. That’s because of one unfortunate truth about most SAT programs: they don’t work.
If you oversee cybersecurity for an organization, then you’re likely familiar with the pain that comes with implementing one, managing it, and encouraging its usage. Given their complexities, traditional SAT solutions practically force non-technical employees to become full-on technologists.
Challenges for Administrators
Challenges for Employees
Challenges for Your Organization
Complex, ongoing management is frustrating. Plus, through it all they just find poor results.
They’re bored. Unengaging content is detrimental, as it doesn’t lead to knowledge retention. Boring, unengaging content doesn’t help with knowledge retention.
Most SATs aren’t effective because they’re created by generalists, not real cybersecurity experts And many are designed with little reporting capabilities, leading to limited visibility into success rates
Because most SAT programs are complex to manage, they’re usually dismissed as a means to an end. Just check a box for compliance and move on. But when done right, SAT can be a potent tool to help your employees make more intelligent, more instinctive, security-conscious decisions.
Ask the Right Questions Before Choosing Your SAT Solution#
When it comes to choosing the right solution for your organization, there are some questions you should first ask yourself. By assessing the following, you’ll be better equipped to select the option that best fits your specific needs.
Learning-Based Questions
Are the topics covered in this SAT relevant to my organization’s security and compliance concerns?
Are episodes updated regularly to reflect current threats and scenarios?
Does this SAT engage users in a unique, meaningful manner?
Is this SAT built and supported by cybersecurity practitioners?
Is the teaching methodology proven to increase knowledge retention?
Management-Based Questions
Can someone outside of my organization manage the SAT for me?
Can it be deployed quickly?
Does it automatically enroll new users and automate management?
Is it smart enough to skip non-human identities so I don’t assign training to, say, our copy machine?
Is it simple and intuitive enough for anyone across my organization to use?
Your ideal SAT will allow you to answer a resounding “Yes” to all of the above.
A SAT solution that’s easy to deploy, manage, and use can have a substantial positive impact. That’s because a solution that delivers “ease” has considered all of your organization’s cybersecurity needs in advance. In other words, an effective SAT does all the heavy lifting on your behalf, as it features:
Relevant topics …based on real threats you might encounter.
What to look for:
To avoid canned, outdated training, choose a SAT solution that’s backed by experts. Cybersecurity practitioners should be the ones regularly creating and updating episodes based on the latest trends they see hackers leveraging in the wild. Additionally, every episode should cover a unique cybersecurity topic that reflects the most recent real-world tradecraft.
Full management by real experts …so you don’t have to waste time creating, managing, and assigning training.
What to look for:
Ideally, you want a SAT solution that can manage all necessary tasks for you. Seek a SAT solution that’s backed by real cybersecurity experts who can create, curate, and deploy your learning programs and phishing scenarios on your behalf.
Memorable episodes …with fun, story-driven lessons that are relatable and easy to comprehend.
What to look for:
Strive for a SAT solution that features character-based narratives. This indicates the SAT is carefully designed to engage learners of all attention spans. Remember, if the episodes are intentionally entertaining and whimsical, you’re more likely to find your employees conversing about inside jokes, recurring characters, and, of course, what they’ve learned. As a result, these ongoing discussions only serve to fortify your culture of security.
Continual enhancements …so episodes are updated regularly in response to real-world threats.
What to look for: Seek out a SAT solution that provides monthly episodes, as this will keep your learners up to date. Regular encounters with simulated cybersecurity scenarios can help enhance their abilities to spot and defend against risks, such as phishing attempts. These simulations should also be dispersed at unpredictable time intervals (i.e. morning, night, weekends, early in the month, later in the month, etc.), keeping learners on their toes and allowing them to put their security knowledge into practice.
Minimal time commitment …so you don’t have to invest countless hours managing it all.
What to look for: For your learners, choose a SAT solution that doesn’t feel like an arduous chore. Look for solutions that specialize in engaging episodes that are designed to be completed in shorter periods of time. For your own administrative needs, select a SAT that can sync regularly with your most popular platforms, such as Microsoft 365, Google, Okta, or Slack. It should also sync your employee directories with ease, so whenever you activate or deactivate users, it’ll automatically update the information. Finally, make sure it’s intelligent enough to decipher between human and non-human identities, so you’re only charged for accounts linked to real individuals.
Real results …through episodes that instill meaningful security-focused behaviors and habits.
What to look for: An impactful SAT should deliver monthly training that’s rooted in science-backed teaching methodologies proven to help your employees internalize and retain lessons better. Your SAT should feature engaging videos, text, and short quizzes that showcase realistic cyber threats you and your employees are likely to encounter in the wild, such as:PhishingSocial engineeringPhysical device securityand more
Measurable data …with easy-to-read reports on usage and success rates.
What to look for: An impactful SAT program should provide robust reporting. Comprehensible summaries should highlight those learners who haven’t taken their training or those whom a phishing simulation has compromised. Additionally, detailed reports should give you all the data you need to help prove business, insurance, and regulatory compliance.
Easy adoption ….that makes it easy to deploy and easy to scale with your organization.
What to look for: Choose a SAT solution that’s specially built to accommodate organizations with limited time and resources. A solution that’s easy to implement can be deployed across your organization in a matter of minutes.
Compliance …with a range of standards and regulations
What to look for: While compliance is the bare minimum of what a SAT should offer your organization, it shouldn’t be understated. Whether to meet insurance check boxes or critical industry regulations, every business has its own compliance demands. At the very least, your SAT solution should cover the requirements of: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI)Service Organization Control Type 2 (SOC 2)EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The Threat Landscape is Changing. Your SAT Should Change With It. #
Cybercriminals think they’re smart, maliciously targeting individuals across organizations like yours. That’s why you need to ensure your employees are smarter. If they’re aware of the ever-changing tactics hackers employ, they can stand as your first line of defense. But first, you need to deploy a training solution you can trust, backed by real cybersecurity experts who understand emerging real-world threats.
Minimize time-consuming maintenance and management tasks
Improve knowledge retention through neuroscience-based learning principles
Update you and your employees on the current threat landscape
Establish a culture that values cybersecurity
Inspire meaningful behavioral habits to improve security awareness
Engage you and your employees in a creative, impactful manner
Assure regulatory compliance
Keep cyber criminals out of your organization
Discover how a fully managed SAT can free up your time and resources, all while empowering your employees with smarter habits that better protect your organization from cyber threats.
Say goodbye to ineffective, outdated training. Say hello to Huntress SAT.
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In 2007, there was a study from the University of Maryland proving that internet-connected systems were attacked every 39 seconds on average. Today, that number has grown more than 60%. Cisco sees 64 attempts to connect to ransomware infrastructure every second. The world is becoming digitized, and hybrid, which creates an environment that criminals target with increasing sophistication. It’s too much for human-scale, and so a hybrid world requires a hybrid approach that sits between humans and machines.
Envision an AI Assistant that serves as a reliable partner for incident responders, offering precise, real-time guidance on the subsequent steps to take, tailored to the specific state of the incident at hand and allowing SOC (Security Operations Center) teams to respond faster and do more with less. I am pleased to announce the launch of the AI Assistant in XDR as a part of our Breach Protection Suite.
In our RSAC 2023 announcement, we introduced a vision of our Cisco SOC Assistant, designed to expedite threat detection and response. Today, this vision is realized and available in private preview. It enhances our Breach Protection Suite which is powered by Cisco XDR’s capabilities. It significantly speeds up investigations and responses, enabling security teams to safeguard their environments more efficiently and cost-effectively.
Assist with Information Discovery
In 2024, the global shortfall of 3.5 million security professionals, as reported by ISC2, underscores the importance of retaining and recruiting skilled personnel to counter increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and safeguard enterprises. Moreover, the lack of appropriate tools often leads to ineffective cyber risk management and professional burnout, adversely affecting staff retention and the SOC’s capacity to thwart attacks.
The AI Assistant in XDR acts as a potent enhancer, empowering SOC teams to maximize their efficiency and effectively close the personnel and skill gap. When an incident occurs, the assistant will contextualize events across email, the web, endpoints, and the network to tell the SOC analyst exactly what happened and its impact on their environment. It presents a short description of the incident that quickly answers what, when and how an incident happened. It also provides a long description of the incident which explains the timeline of events that have happened in this active incident.
Figure 1: Short Description of Incident Details generated by the AI AssistantFigure 2: Long Description of Incident Details and Events Timeline
Moreover, our AI Assistant utilizes XDR’s patented ability to prioritize critical incidents, reducing alert fatigue for the SOC team and enhancing their efficiency in handling active incidents.
Figure 3: Targeted Prioritization of Incidents by AI Assistant that Need Immediate Attention
Augment and Elevate SOC Teams with Best Practice Recommendations
Today’s SOCs often struggle with a fragmented technology stack, making it difficult to respond effectively to cyber threats. Alert fatigue is a major hurdle for modern SOC teams, hindering proactive threat hunting and leading to overlooked alerts and burnout. The Cisco AI Assistant comes to the rescue and jumpstarts the incident response process for a modern SOC team.
Our AI Assistant, powered by Cisco XDR the platform for Cisco’s Breach Protection Suite, synthesizes data from email, web, processes, endpoints, cloud, and network domains, offering precise action recommendations to effectively contain ongoing cyber-attacks. It works at machine scale to identify patterns and potential attacks that humans might miss because of alert fatigue, if a defender is only looking at one domain in isolation, or while trying to manually correlate data. The AI Assistant is context aware, meaning it tracks the state of the incident in real-time and generates tailored recommendations specific to that incident.
Figure 4: Tailored Recommendations for an Incident by the AI Assistant
Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) are two primary metrics that SOC teams want to optimize for. Cisco XDR with our AI Assistant enables security teams to reduce these metrics by jumpstarting investigations and incident response by providing tailored recommendations for that specific incident.
Enable Seamless Collaboration Across Security Teams
The Cisco AI Assistant, embedded within XDR, facilitates team collaboration using Webex, Teams, or Slack. This empowers security teams to swiftly assemble the right experts for an active incident, thereby speeding up the MTTR. The AI Assistant unifies the team by setting up WAR rooms, summarizing messages, and logging them in XDR for instant audit-readiness.
Figure 5: AI Assistant creates a Webex WAR Room and brings the right experts together for Incident Response
Automate Workflows to Neutralize Threats Across the Enterprise
Today’s SOCs often lack a cohesive technology stack to respond to cyber threats efficiently and consistently. As the IT environment grows beyond the on-premises data center to cloud, hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud country specific data centers, organizations accumulate point solutions to monitor and protect pieces of the environment. As a result, SOC analysts must do a lot of the heavy lifting required to detect and respond to an attack. This includes logging into different tools to execute workflows that contain an attack.
Our AI Assistant taps into advanced workflows and atomics with Cisco XDR’s 90+ integrations. Our AI assistant enables the execution of workflows at a single click, guided by the AI Assistant’s personalized recommendations that consider the incident’s playbook and current state in real-time.
Figure 6: Execution of Automated Workflows by the AI Assistant to Contain an Incident
Gone are the days when security teams had to juggle multiple isolated products and execute workflows in each to mitigate an attack. With Cisco Breach Protection Suite, billions of security events can be correlated and recommended actions can be generated and executed all in one place. This is the transformative power of the Cisco XDR combined with Cisco’s AI Assistant revolutionizing enterprise security.
Conclusion
By leveraging comprehensive telemetry data from various sources in Cisco XDR and combining that with our AI Assistant, we enable SOC teams to rapidly respond to active incidents and fortify defenses against complex threats. The AI Assistant amplifies the SOC’s existing knowledge, streamlines routine tasks, and empowers analysts to focus on strategic initiatives. This boosts analyst productivity and job satisfaction, leading to improved staff retention and SOC effectiveness, ultimately resulting in precise, consistent, and accurate security outcomes.
By: Shannon Murphy, Greg Young March 20, 2024 Read time: 2 min (589 words)
On February 26, 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the official 2.0 version of the Cyber Security Framework (CSF).
What is the NIST CSF?
The NIST CSF is a series of guidelines and best practices to reduce cyber risk and improve security posture. The framework is divided into pillars or “functions” and each function is subdivided into “categories” which outline specific outcomes.
As titled, it is a framework. Although it was published by a standards body, it is not a technical standard.
https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework
What Is the CSF Really Used For?
Unlike some very prescriptive NIST standards (for example, crypto standards like FIPS-140-2), the CSF framework is similar to the ISO 27001 certification guidance. It aims to set out general requirements to inventory security risk, design and implement compensating controls, and adopt an overarching process to ensure continuous improvement to meet shifting security needs.
It’s a high-level map for security leaders to identify categories of protection that are not being serviced well. Think of the CSF as a series of buckets with labels. You metaphorically put all the actions, technology deployments, and processes you do in cybersecurity into these buckets, and then look for buckets with too little activity in them or have too much activity — or repetitive activity — and not enough of other requirements in them.
The CSF hierarchy is that Functions contain many Categories — or in other words, there are big buckets that contain smaller buckets.
What Is New in CSF 2.0?
The most noteworthy change is the introduction of Governance as a sixth pillar in the CSF Framework. This shift sees governance being given significantly more importance from just a mention within the previous five Categories to now being its owna separate Function.
According to NIST the Govern function refers to how an organization’s, “cybersecurity risk management strategy, expectations, and policy are established, communicated, and monitored.” This is a positive and needed evolution, as when governance is weak, it often isn’t restricted to a single function (e.g. IAM) and can be systemic.
Governance aligns to a broader paradigm shift where we see cybersecurity becoming highly relevant within the business context as an operational risk. The Govern expectation is cybersecurity is integrated into the broader enterprise risk management strategy and requires dedicated accountability and oversight.
There are some other reassignments and minor changes in the remaining five Categories. CSF version 1.0 was published in 2014, and 1.1 in 2018. A lot has changed in security since then. The 2.0 update acknowledges that a review has been conducted.
As a framework, the CISO domain has not radically changed. Yes, the technology has radically evolved, but the greatest evolution in the CISO role really has been around governance: greater interaction with C-suite and board, while some activities have been handed off to operations.
So How Will This Impact Me in the Short Term?
The update to the NIST CSF provides a fresh opportunity to security leaders to start or reopen conversations with business leaders on evolving needs.
The greatest impact will be to auditors and consultants who will need to make formatting changes to their templates and work products to align with version 2.0.
CISOs and security leaders will have to make some similar changes to how they track and report compliance.
But overall, the greatest impact (aside from some extra billable cybersecurity consulting fees) will be a boost of relevance to the CSF that could attract new adherents both through security leaders choosing to look at themselves through the CSF lens and management asking the same of CISOs.
WRITTEN ON FEBRUARY 14, 2024 BY NOLEN JOHNSON (NPJOHNSON)
21 – Finally old enough to drink (at least in the US)!
Hey y’all! Welcome back!
We’re a bit ahead of schedule this year, we know normally you don’t expect to hear from us until April-ish.
This was largely thanks to some new faces around the scene, some old faces stepping up to the plate, and several newly appointed Project Directors!
With all that said, we have been working extremely hard since Android 14’s release last October to port our features to this new version of Android. Thanks to our hard work adapting to Google’s largely UI-based changes in Android 12/13, and Android 14’s dead-simple device bring-up requirements, we were able to rebase our changes onto Android 14 much more efficiently.
This lets us spend some much overdue time on our apps suite! Applications such as Aperture had their features and UX improved significantly, while many of our aging apps such as Jelly, Dialer, Contacts, Messaging, LatinIME (Keyboard), and Calculator got near full redesigns that bring them into the Material You era!
…and last but not least, yet another new app landed in our apps suite! Don’t get used to it though, or maybe do, we’re not sure yet.
Now, let’s remind everyone about versioning conventions – To match AOSP’s versioning conventions, and due to the fact it added no notable value to the end-user, we dropped our subversion from a branding perspective.
As Android has moved onto the quarterly maintenance release model, this release will be “LineageOS 21”, not 21.0 or 21.1 – though worry not – we are based on the latest and greatest Android 14 version, QPR1.
Additionally, to you developers out there – any repository that is not core-platform, or isn’t expected to change in quarterly maintenance releases will use branches without subversions – e.g., lineage-21 instead of lineage-21.0.
New Features!
Security patches from January 2023 to February 2024 have been merged to LineageOS 18.1 through 21.
Glimpse of Us: We now have a shining new app, Glimpse! It will become the default gallery app starting from LineageOS 21
An extensive list of applications were heavily improved or redesigned:
Aperture: A touch of Material You, new video features, and more!
Calculator: Complete Material You redesign
Contacts: Design adjustments for Material You
Dialer: Large cleanups and code updates, Material You and bugfixes
Eleven: Some Material You design updates
Jelly: Refreshed interface, Material You and per-website location permissions
LatinIME: Material You enhancements, spacebar trackpad, fixed number row
Messaging: Design adjustments for Material You
A brand new boot animation by our awesome designer Vazguard!
SeedVault and Etar have both been updated to their newest respective upstream version.
WebView has been updated to Chromium 120.0.6099.144.
We have further developed our side pop-out expanding volume panel.
Our Updater app should now install A/B updates much faster (thank Google!)
We have contributed even more changes and improvements back upstream to the FOSS Etar calendar app we integrated some time back!
We have contributed even more changes and improvements back upstream to the Seedvault backup app.
Android TV builds still ship with an ad-free Android TV launcher, unlike Google’s ad-enabled launcher – most Android TV Google Apps packages now have options to use the Google ad-enabled launcher or our ad-restricted version.
Our merge scripts have been largely overhauled, greatly simplifying the Android Security Bulletin merge process, as well as making supporting devices like Pixel devices that have full source releases much more streamlined.
Our extract utilities can now extract from OTA images and factory images directly, further simplifying monthly security updates for maintainers on devices that receive security patches regularly.
LLVM has been fully embraced, with builds now defaulting to using LLVM bin-utils and optionally, the LLVM integrated assembler. For those of you with older kernels, worry not, you can always opt-out.
A global Quick Settings light mode has been developed so that this UI element matches the device’s theme.
Our Setup Wizard has seen adaptation for Android 14, with improved styling, more seamless transitions, and significant amounts of legacy code being stripped out.
The developer-kit (e.g. Radxa 0, Banana Pi B5, ODROID C4, Jetson X1) experience has been heavily improved, with UI elements and settings that aren’t related to their more restricted hardware feature-set being hidden or tailored!
Amazing Applications!
Calculator
Our Calculator app has received a UI refresh, bringing it in sync with the rest of our app suite, as well as a few new features:
Code cleanup
Reworked UI components to look more modern
Added support for Material You
Fixed some bugs
Glimpse
We’ve been working on a new gallery app, called Glimpse, which will replace Gallery2, the AOSP default gallery app.
Thanks to developers SebaUbuntu, luca020400 and LuK1337 who started the development, together with the help of designer Vazguard.
We focused on a clean, simple and modern-looking UI, designed around Material You’s guidelines, making sure all the features that you would expect from a gallery app are there.
It’ll be available on all devices starting from LineageOS 21.
Aperture
This has been the first year for this new application and we feel it has been received well by the community. As promised, we have continued to improve it and add new features, while keeping up with Google’s changes to the CameraX library (even helping them fix some bugs found on some of our maintained devices). We’d like to also thank the community for their work on translations, especially since Aperture strings changed quite often this year.
Here’s a quick list of some of the new features and improvements since the last update:
Added a better dialog UI to ask the user for location permissions when needed
UI will now rotate to follow the device orientation
Added Material You support
Improved QR code scanner, now with support for Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Easy Connect™ QR codes
Added support for Google Assistant voice actions
Added photo and video mirroring (flipping) options
Audio can be muted while recording a video
Better error handling, including when no camera is available
Added configurable volume button gestures
The app will now warn you if the device overheats and is now able to automatically stop recording if the device temperature is too high
Added an information chip on top of the viewfinder to show some useful information, like low battery or disabled microphone
Added some advanced video processing settings (noise reduction, sharpening, etc.)
You can now set the flash to torch mode in photo mode by long-pressing the flash button
Added support for HDR video recording
Jelly
Our browser app has received a UI refresh, bringing it in sync with the rest of our app suite, as well as a few new features:
Code cleanup
Reworked UI components to look more modern
Added support for Material You
Fixed some bugs regarding downloading files
Added Brave as a search engine and suggestions provider
Dropped Google encrypted search engine, as Google defaults to HSTS now
Baidu suggestion provider now uses HTTPS
Implemented per-website location permissions
Dialer, Messaging, and Contacts
Since AOSP abandoneddeprecated the Dialer, we have taken over the code base and did heavy cleanups, updating to newer standards (AndroidX) and redesigning:
Code cleanup
Changed to using Material You design
Proper dark and light themes
Several bugfixes, specifically with number lookups and the contact list
While Messaging was also deprecated by AOSP, at least the Contacts app was not. Nonetheless we gave both of them an overhaul and made them also follow the system colors and look more integrated.
Careful Commonization
Several of our developers have worked hard on SoC-specific common kernels to base on that can be merged on a somewhat regular basis to pull in the latest features/security patches to save maintainers additional effort.
Go check them out and consider basing your device kernels on them!
Additionally, many legacy devices require interpolating libraries that we colloquially refer to as “shims” – these have long been device and maintainer managed, but this cycle we have decided to commonize them to make the effort easier on everyone and not duplicate effort!
You can check it out here and contribute shims that you think other devices may need or add additional components to additional shims and compatibility layers provided via Gerrit!
Deprecations
Overall, we feel that the 21 branch has reached feature and stability parity with 20 and is ready for initial release.
For the first time in many cycles, all devices that shipped LineageOS 19.1 were either promoted or dropped by the maintainer by the time of this blog post, so LineageOS 19.1 was retired naturally. As such, no new device submissions targeting the 19.1 branch will be able to ship builds (you can still apply and fork your work to the organization, though!).
LineageOS 18.1 builds were still not deprecated this year, as Google’s somewhat harsh requirements of BPF support in all Android 12+ device’s kernels meant that a significant amount of our legacy devices on the build-roster would have died.
LineageOS 18.1, is still on a feature freeze, and building each device monthly, shortly after the Android Security Bulletin is merged for that month.
We will allow new LineageOS 18.1 submissions to be forked to the organization, but we no longer will allow newly submitted LineageOS 18.1 devices to ship.
LineageOS 21 will launch building for a decent selection of devices, with additional devices to come as they are marked as both Charter compliant and ready for builds by their maintainer.
Upgrading to LineageOS 21
To upgrade, please follow the upgrade guide for your device by clicking on it here and then on “Upgrade to a higher version of LineageOS”.
If you’re coming from an unofficial build, you need to follow the good ole’ install guide for your device, just like anyone else looking to install LineageOS for the first time. These can be found at the same place here by clicking on your device and then on “Installation”.
Please note that if you’re currently on an official build, you DO NOT need to wipe your device, unless your device’s wiki page specifically dictates otherwise, as is needed for some devices with massive changes, such as a repartition.
Download portal
While it has been in the making for quite a while and already released a year ago, it’s still news in regards to this blog post. Our download portal has been redesigned and also gained a few functional improvements:
Dark mode
Downloads of additional images (shown for all devices but not used on all of them, read the instructions to know which ones you need for your device’s installation!)
Verifying downloaded files (see here) – if you go with any download not obtained from us, you can still verify it was originally signed by us and thus untampered with
Wiki
The LineageOS Wiki has also been expanded throughout the year and now offers, in addition to the known and tested instructions for all supported devices, some improvements:
The device overview allows filtering for various attributes you might be interested in a device (please note: choosing a device only based on that list still does not guarantee any device support beyond the point of when you chose it)
The device overview now lists variants of a device and other known marketing names in a more visible way, also allowing for different device information and instructions per variant to be shown
The installation instructions have been paginated, giving users less chance to skip a section involuntarily
In addition to that we’d like to take this time to remind users to follow instructions on their device’s respective Wiki Page given the complexity introduced by AOSP changes like System-As-Root, A/B Partition Scheme, Dynamic Partitions, and most recently Virtual A/B found on the Pixel 5 and other devices launching with Android 11, the instructions many of you are used to following from memory are either no longer valid or are missing very critical steps. As of 16.0, maintainers have been expected to run through the full instructions and verify they work on their devices. The LineageOS Wiki was recently further extended, and maintainers were given significantly more options to customize their device’s specific installation, update, and upgrade instructions.
Developers, Developers, Developers
Or, in this case, maintainers, maintainers, maintainers. We want your device submissions!
If you’re a developer and would like to submit your device for officials, it’s easier than ever. Just follow the instructions here.
The above also applies to people looking to bring back devices that were at one point official but are no longer supported – seriously – even if it’s not yet completely compliant, submit it! Maybe we can help you complete it.
After you submit, within generally a few weeks, but in most cases a week, you’ll receive some feedback on your device submission; and if it’s up to par, you’ll be invited to our communications instances and your device will be forked to LineageOS’s official repositories.
Don’t have the knowledge to maintain a device, but want to contribute to the platform? We have lots of other things you can contribute to. For instance, our apps suite is always looking for new people to help improve them, or you can contribute to the wiki by adding more useful information & documentation. Gerrit is always open for submissions! Once you’ve contributed a few things, send an email to devrel(at)lineageos.org detailing them, and we’ll get you in the loop.
Also, if you sent a submission via Gmail over the last few months, due to infrastructural issues, some of them didn’t make it to us, so please resend them!
Generic Targets
We’ve talked about these before, but these are important, so we will cover them again.
Though we’ve had buildable generic targets since 2019, to make LineageOS more accessible to developers, and really anyone interested in giving LineageOS a try, we’ve documented how to use them in conjunction with the Android Emulator/Android Studio!
Additionally, similar targets can now be used to build GSI in mobile, Android TV configurations, and Android Automotive (we’ll talk more about this later) making LineageOS more accessible than ever to devices using Google’s Project Treble. We won’t be providing official builds for these targets, due to the fact the user experience varies entirely based on how well the device manufacturer complied with Treble’s requirements, but feel free to go build them yourself and give it a shot!
Please note that Android 12 (and by proxy Android 13/14) diverged GSI and Emulator targets. Emulator targets reside in lineage_sdk_$arch, while GSI targets reside in lineage_gsi_$arch.
Translations
Bilingual? Trilingual? Anything-lingual?
If you think you can help translate LineageOS to a different language, jump over to our wiki and have a go! If your language is not supported natively in Android, reach out to us on Crowdin and we’ll take the necessary steps to include your language. For instance, LineageOS is the first Android custom distribution that has complete support for the Welsh (Cymraeg) language thanks to its community of translators.
Please, contribute to translations only if you are reasonably literate in the target language; poor translations waste both our time and yours.
Trying to figure out how to start your hybrid cloud journey and looking for some real-world customer examples to see how customers have used VMware Cloud on AWS for different use cases and how they have seen significant positive impact in terms of cost, speed and uptime of the environment after moving to VMware Cloud on AWS, then you are at the right place. In this blog series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9), you will find a lot of different customer stories across different geographies and different industries who have been using VMware Cloud on AWS over the past few years.
And now, we are back with another set of latest customer stories in Part 10 of this blog series. But before we dive into it, let’s look at the latest IDC Business Value Snapshot results with you.
Hot off the Press!!! 2024 IDC Business Value Snapshot: VMware Cloud on AWS Outshines On-Premises, Unleashing Superior Agility, Performance, and Business Results
IDC interviewed some of the existing VMware Cloud on AWS customers. And they found out that VMware Cloud on AWS delivers superior agility and performance, better cost and staff efficiencies and improved business results as compared to the traditional on-premises environments and faster and efficient migration as compared to other traditional public cloud options. So don’t forget to check out the 2024 IDC Business Value Snapshot.
Now, let’s dive into some of the recent customer stories and understand what they have to say about their experiences of using VMware Cloud on AWS:
1. NEC Corporation Performs Accelerated, Seamless Migration to the Cloud
NEC Corporation, a provider of diverse solutions ranging from social infrastructure to public and private enterprises to space development in Japan, had “Digital Transformation within the company” as one of the top initiatives on their agenda and for that, they were seeking for a fast, affordable, and secure transition to cloud. To implement a large-scale move to the cloud rapidly and smoothly—at low cost—NEC chose VMware Cloud on AWS mainly because this service fulfilled their 2 key requirements: minimal impact of cloud migration on end users and reduced time and costs of migration.
“After carefully considering how to safely carry out the cloud migration in a cost-effective and speedy manner, we decided that VMware Cloud on AWS was the best choice.” Hiroshi Kodama, Corporate Executive Vice President, CIO and CISO, NEC Corporation
In only 70 days, NEC completed the migration of 301 systems and 424 virtual machines to VMware Cloud on AWS. And after moving to VMware Cloud on AWS, they were able to cut migration costs by 91% and reduced their operational expenses by 19% over the previous on-premises infrastructure.
Check out the case study and video to learn more about their experiences.
2. Loyalty NZ Disrupts Data-Driven Loyalty Programs with VMware Cloud on AWS
With around 2.8 million members, Loyalty NZ runs Flybuys, the most extensive loyalty program in New Zealand. They have significant amount of valuable customer insights data that their partners rely on. And they realized that they should move from traditional infrastructure model to hybrid cloud model that would allow them to better utilize this data and provide better customer engagement and personalized customer experiences. Loyalty NZ wanted to exit its physical data centers and adopted VMware Cloud on AWS as the solution to complete this transition. They migrated their physical data centers to VMware Cloud on AWS in three phases in just over three months, right on schedule.
And here is what they have to say about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS:
“We’ve gone through two holiday periods, and we’ve had a total of zero severity one incidents. Queries that previously ran in hours, now take minutes. And at important retail dates, we’ve been able to ramp up our capacity to 800percent.” says Brian Ferris, CTO, Loyalty NZ.
“This was a complex migration made simple. It was on time, on budget, on scope, minimal business disruption and delivered all the value that it was meant to” says Jeremy Anderson, acting CTO, Loyalty NZ.
3. POSCO DX Expands Business with VMware Horizon VDI on VMware Cloud on AWS
Posco DX specializes in deploying industrial robots in high-risk, high-intensity industrial environments to enhance worker safety and streamline logistics management. With the new goal of discovering future businesses in smart logistics, automation, and industrial robots space, POSCO DX wanted to move from its previous ad-hoc, revenue-based system integration to a subscription-based business model. Additionally, POSCO DX recognized that it was necessary to create a next-gen work environment for the distributed workforce to increase employee productivity. Also, security was their prime concern. POSCO DX required seamless access from any device that can easily maneuver between private and public spaces while maintaining a high level of security and operational efficiency.
In order to address these business needs, Posco DX deployed a full-stack VDI system offered by VMware Horizon running on VMware Cloud on AWS, that provides hardened security. VMware Cloud on AWS offered strong Zero Trust security, which enhanced mobile security and behavior-based endpoint response with micro-segmentation using distributed firewalls and information leakage monitoring. VMware Cloud on AWS provided them fast migration and bi-directional portability of workloads without demanding any application refactoring or changes.
“With the newly introduced VMware VDI solution, we have even achieved a business transformation based on a Zero Trust security framework.” Seok Bae Yoon, Project Manager, IT Infrastructure Group, TSS Section, POSCO DX
After migrating VDI workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS, POSCO DX experienced improved performance for applications including video conference and collaboration tools. And automated operations including VDI lifecycle management and user inquiry response resulted in cost reduction. Also, POSCO DX improved energy efficiency to reduce carbon emissions, and the company achieved improved corporate governance via enhanced security.
4. The Royal Orthopedic Hospital Pioneers Move to the Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS
NHS- The Royal Orthopedic Hospital is one of the largest musculoskeletal and orthopedic hospitals in Europe. The hospital wanted to deliver quality healthcare to its patients while reducing operating costs, minimizing the healthcare system’s carbon footprint, and giving clinicians better access to the high-performing IT systems they need to provide quality healthcare.
The Royal Orthopedic Hospital used VMware Cloud on AWS to deliver patient care with highly available services at a lower cost, enabling the hospital trust to meet sustainability goals, scale hybrid workforce, and optimize IT spending. The hospital seamlessly migrated critical workloads such as medical systems, patient data, the radiology solution, and administrative functions, including the letter dictation application and appointment management and patient check-in systems within few days.
“We’ve had a great experience with VMware, so implementing VMware Cloud on AWS was the natural choice.” Liam Maiden, IT Program Manager, The Royal Orthopedic Hospital
By moving to VMware Cloud on AWS, The Royal Orthopedic Hospital has embraced a new era of efficiency and scalability, giving clinicians reliable access to tools that help them deliver outstanding patient care. Administrative staff can also work more efficiently from anywhere, promoting greater employee wellbeing.
5. iGA Bahrain Embraces Hybrid Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts to Transform Government Services
iGA Bahrain is the umbrella for all Bahrain public sector entities. iGA governs and facilitates services within the IT sector, such as proposing public policies, suitable legislation, and decisions for the implementation of the eGovernment programs, as well as necessary IT and data programs.
iGA had 75% of its workloads in the public cloud since around 2017, and the remaining 25% of sensitive and critical workloads were held on-premises with a separate on-premises facility for disaster recovery. There was little coordination between the cloud and on-premises workloads, which led to increased complexity, especially when workloads needed to be moved between the two. This setup also required significant resources to manage and maintain and iGA needed more agility to upscale capacity or offer new services and solutions to government departments. The disaster recovery setup also presented a risk as iGA was using a manual solution that required a minimum of six hours to start up, which in the event of a disaster could lead to loss of data and services to end users.
So, iGA was looking for secure, flexible, efficient, and agile solution that would offer secure cloud services, including sovereign cloud and DR as a Service. iGA opted to deploy VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts to give a completely managed sovereign cloud solution for its on-premises workloads. With VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts, iGA has achieved a cloud-like experience on-premises, providing its customers with a secure sovereign cloud experience. And, due to consistent infrastructure and operations across the hybrid cloud environment, they stored less sensitive data on VMware Cloud on AWS Bahrain region. For DRaaS solution, iGA used VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery on VMware Cloud on AWS to protect its data and applications in the most efficient way possible which helped iGA to efficiently secure its data and services. This was especially useful for supporting government agency users whose requirements can change suddenly.
“By offering secure, flexible cloud solutions to government agencies and private sector organizations, we can ensure workloads are operating at maximum efficiency and availability. This will help the government to fulfil its mission of helping Bahrain to transform into the finest country in GCC to visit, live, work and conduct business.” Dr. Khalid Ahmed Almutawah, Deputy Chief Executive, Operations and Governance, iGA
Apart from the stories mentioned above, there are also some interesting stories that were discussed live directly with the customers at VMware Explore 2023 and AWS re:Invent 2023. So, in case if you missed those sessions, check out the on-demand recordings below:
Sonali Desai is a Group Product Line Marketing Manager for VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware, Inc. Sonali has been working in IT industry for more than 15 years with…
Looking to protect your workloads in the event of a disaster and strengthen disaster recovery? You’re not alone. Here’s how organizations are using VMware Cloud on AWS for their disaster recovery needs. In this blog, I am going to share some of the recent customer stories on disaster and ransomware recovery use case.
But before that, I want to highlight our VMware Cloud on AWS customer panel at VMware Explore Las Vegas 2023. During this panel, our esteemed customers and partners (S&P Global Ratings and Converge Technology Solutions) shared the transformative impact they’ve experienced after migrating workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS within their organizations. It was truly inspiring to witness firsthand the positive changes brought about by this innovative hybrid cloud service. In case you missed attending the live session, don’t worry. Check out this on-demand session and hear it directly from the customers and partners how VMware Cloud on AWS helped them accelerate their cloud transformation initiative.
Now, let’s check out some the customer stories in Disaster and Ransomware Recovery space.
USE CASE: DISASTER RECOVERY
VanEck
VanEck Streamlines Recovery From Modern Ransomware with VMware
Founded in 1955, VanEck is a global investment manager with offices around the world. Today, VanEck offers active and passive strategies with compelling exposures supported by well-designed investment processes. The firm’s capabilities range from core investment opportunities to more specialized exposures to enhance portfolio diversification.
Before using VMware Ransomware Recovery, VanEck relied on the restore capabilities of an outdated backup solution for ransomware recovery. The approach was scattered and required shifting between products to recover. This process consumed valuable IT resources and made the recovery long and unpredictable.
After implementing VMware Ransomware Recovery, this solution helped VanEck cut costs and save FTE hours to better allocate IT resources. The team at VanEck no longer had to build, secure and manage the Isolated Recovery Environment themselves. Using VMware Ransomware Recovery, the team replaced an error-prone recovery process with streamlined recovery at scale.
Here is what VanEck has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Previously, recovery was complicated and time-consuming. Now, everything is seamless and orchestrated. I have yet to see a recovery product for ransomware that works as well as VMware.”
– Alaa Elbanna, Global Director, IT Infrastructure, VanEck
Watch this video to check out VanEck’s success story.
Reily Foods Company
Reily Foods Company Uses VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery to Protect IT Operations at the Southern Foodmaker
Reily Foods Company (Reily Foods) is a 5th-generation, family-owned food and beverage company. Since 1902, they’ve helped to define the food and beverage flavors of the American South. Reily Foods is proud of their New Orleans heritage, which continues to shape the way they make their products and the way they believe in doing business.
Initially, Reily Foods disaster recovery (DR) strategy was to use the New Orleans and Knoxville facilities as DR locations for each other. Reily Foods quickly realized that they didn’t want to keep investing in premium data center hardware that would only be used in a disaster. Add to that the network complexity and capacity needed between sites and momentum started to build for a cloud-based solution. And that’s when Ben Cooper, their Director of Infrastructure & Security, found VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR).
To diversify Reily Foods ecosystem for resiliency, Cooper looked at several other public cloud providers. “VMware Cloud on AWS seemed to be a better fit.” After that the whole disaster recovery project came together for Reily Foods with familiar, trusted, reliable products.
With VMware Cloud DR in place, Reily Foods knows that their critical infrastructure can be served by an RPO (Recovery Point Objective) as low as 30 minutes. Their staff can leverage existing skills and this setup integrates with related technologies already in use at Reily Foods while projecting lower operational costs.
Here is what Reily Foods has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Knowing that I have copies of my infrastructure in the cloud, and that I have the capability to add ransomware recovery in the future is a plus. So far, it’s a great solution that could help a lot of people who are looking to do what we did, which is save money on disaster recovery. We leverage the cloud OpEx model and save money by avoiding an ongoing investment in expensive on-premises equipment that will only be used in the off chance of a disaster.”
– Ben Cooper, Director of Infrastructure, Reily Foods
Learn more about Reily Foods’ success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Fozzy Group
Fozzy Group Protects IT Operations in War Zone using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS
Fozzy Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Ukraine and one of the leading Ukrainian retailers, with over 700 grocery outlets and convenience stores throughout the country.
They wanted to eliminate disruption threats (in supplying groceries and goods to its customers) as the Russian war on Ukraine continues. So, the Fozzy Group decided to adopt cloud for disaster recovery in the event of natural or wartime disruptions. They also wanted to replace disparate systems loosely coupled to serve as protection from a disaster that made it hard to test the recovery plan as well as integrate with their existing VMware infrastructure.
Fozzy Group decided to put in place disaster recovery in the cloud using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) with VMware Cloud on AWS to achieve low RPOs and RTOs for mission critical workloads. By deploying this setup, the team at VMware helped the customer protect itself against the elevated threat of data center disruption in time of war with VMware Cloud DR’s ransomware capabilities.
With time being of the essence, their implementation was complete in just over 2 weeks with VMware’s deployment expertise. Additionally, they are able to support RTO and RPO of as little as few hours for the most critical systems and 24 hours for the less critical ones. Fozzy Group was also able to replicate and host hundreds of terabytes in the cloud in a secure manner supported by VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS.
Here is what the customer has to say about their experience of using the product:
“After implementing VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery, I certainly sleep much better.” – Ivan Slavioglo, Vice President of IT, Fozzy Group
Read more about Fozzy Group’s experience using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Vente-unique
Vente-unique Ensures Business Continuity with VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Cloud on AWS
Vente-unique is the leading online retailer of furniture, home furnishings and decorations in France and throughout Europe. Founded in 2006, the company has grown quickly in France and across Europe. Today, Vente-unique operates in 11 European countries, with 2 million customers served so far and bringing in 160 million euros in sales revenue in 2022.
The Vente-unique warehouse is 860,000 square feet spread over 13 storage cells and they employ 300 people mainly working in receiving, storage and dispatch. Their entire warehouse is computerized, and the warehouse operates 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. With an exclusively online sales business and a growing volume of traffic, Vente-unique was particularly vulnerable in the event of a system failure. A disaster like that would bring 300 employees to a standstill, clients left unserved, empty lorries leaving the warehouse. To protect its reputation, which is built on trust and customer satisfaction, Vente-unique wanted to ensure that its operations run smoothly and without interruption.
The team at Vente-unique needed a disaster recovery plan to guarantee client satisfaction and delivery times. After some back and forth with VMware and AWS, they chose VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) on VMware Cloud on AWS to implement a fast and secure disaster recovery plan and ensure the protection and full recovery of its critical workloads in the event of a disaster. The implementation went well and within two weeks, they setup a cloud backup system with the help of VMware and AWS partner, Metanext. This setup with VMware Cloud DR would allow Vente-unique to resume activity in under 4 hours in the event of a warehouse system failure.
Here is what Vente-unique has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Thanks to the combined benefits of VMware and AWS, we are now able to recover from an outage in less than four hours. Indeed, our customers will no longer have the risk of being impacted in the reception date of their parcels and we will continue to respect our promises.” – Grégory Schurgast, CTO, Vente-unique
Watch Vente-unique’s success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Woche-Pass AG
Woche-Pass AG Drives Business Resilience and Prepares for a Scalable Future
Woche-Pass AG (Woche-Pass) is a media house in Sursee, Switzerland. It originally launched as a print shop in 1975 and today, the company runs a successful website plus two weekly printed publications and digital guides.
Before moving to the cloud, the customer faced some challenges like disruptive DR testing, which led to infrequent testing. Further, the changes to the production site were not always deployed to DR site and the existing DR solution did not work properly during a real DR event which resulted in Woche-Pass almost missing a print deadline. Besides, they had limited IT resources available.
By moving to VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery with VMware Cloud on AWS, the customer attained rapid response to disaster recovery, achieved frequent testing and continuous health checks and was able to protect production with limited in-house resources.
Here is what Woche-Pass has to say about their experience of using the product:
“If a real disaster situation occurs, we are confident that we’ll be live with the disaster recovery site within a short time.” – Adrian Hess, CEO – Woche-Pass
Learn more about Woche-Pass AG’s success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.
Publiacqua
Publiacqua Improves Infrastructure Resilience with Cloud-based Disaster Recovery using VMware Cloud on AWS
The Italian municipal utility operator Publiacqua manages integrated water services for the provinces of Florence, Prato, Pistoia and Arezzo.
They wanted to improve the resilience of their infrastructure through disaster recovery service in the cloud. They also wanted to build strong levels of IT governance to ensure operational continuity as well as ensure GDPR compliance. Additionally, Publiacqua wanted to identify a solution that was sustainable from technical and economic perspective.
They decided to build disaster recovery directly in the cloud using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) with VMware Cloud on AWS. Doing so, Publiacqua attained a more responsive, scalable and resilient IT architecture and reliable disaster recovery service as well as strengthened their business continuity models.
Publiacqua also freed up their IT architects from operational management to focus on capacity management, application integration, and data exchange methods. This also allowed the IT team to update and improve their skillset while tackling the project with tools and technologies they already knew.
Here is what Publiacqua has to say about their experience of using the product:
“The possibility of integrating VMware Cloud on AWS allowed us to tackle the project with tools and technologies we already knew.” – Mauro Cacciafani, Architecture, Risk and Security Manager, Publiacqua
Learn more about Publiacqua’s experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS in this case study.
Merrick & Company
Merrick & Company Protects Digital Assets from Ransomware using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS
Merrick & Company (Merrick) is an employee-owned engineering, architecture, surveying, and geospatial firm headquartered in Greenwood Village, CO, USA. They wanted to move to cloud-based infrastructure to protect digital assets from ransomware in addition to being able to integrate with their existing VMware infrastructure.
The customer decided to implement cloud-based disaster recovery through VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery with VMware Cloud on AWS so that they would be ransomware and disaster protected. With this setup, Merrick was able to achieve RPO of 30 min, down from 4 hours previously. As part of this setup, they also integrated with existing VMware infrastructure at Merrick, and used the cloud as a failover target.
Here is what Merrick & Company has to say about their experience of using the product:
“It’s just a few clicks on the VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery console to enable protection for additional virtual machines. I can modify the schedules so that we control when protection takes place, for example weekly, daily, or even every few hours.” – Brian Whiting, Merrick IT Organization
Check out the case study to learn more about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS.
What’s Next:
Start protecting your workloads with VMware Cloud on AWS. Now, you can sign up for the free trial of VMware Cloud on AWS and try out the migration yourselves for free for the first 30 days. Also check out how VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Ransomware Recovery can help you in your DR needs. And meanwhile, if you would like to learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS, here are more learning resources for you:
Ruchi is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware Inc. With 14+ years of strong technology, data, and marketing background, Ruchi brings deep experience in…
Looking to rapidly migrate to the cloud? Scale cost-effectively and strengthen disaster recovery? You’re not alone. Here’s how organizations are unlocking the power of hybrid cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS. In this blog, let’s dive into a collection of compelling customer stories that offer a glimpse into the impactful experiences of our customers with VMware Cloud on AWS. Also, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7 of this blog series for more customer stories across various use cases.
USE CASE: DATA CENTER MIGRATION
Kingston University
Kingston University Accelerates consciously hybrid cloud strategy by migrating to VMware Cloud on AWS
Kingston University is a prestigious higher education institution based in London. It offers courses across various disciplines from undergraduate to postgraduate level and prides itself on producing the most sought-after graduates in the country.
The university needed flexible and agile technology that enables it to respond rapidly to changing requirements. The IT team at the university also wanted to support the university’s transition to more sustainable and energy efficient solutions. Additionally, the university’s ageing on-premises data centers were complex to manage and maintain. The infrastructure refresh cycle was problematically variable, there was growing technical debt, and a need for more scalability. Also, the IT team wanted to move to the cloud and at the same time run some resource-intensive workloads on premises.
By migrating their workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS, the IT team at Kingston University was able to reduce the data center footprint by 90%. They bulk migrated 200 virtual machines (VMs) with zero downtime in just three weeks. In total, 650 of the 750 VMs were moved to the cloud by March 2023.
Using VMware Cloud on AWS, the IT team at the university gained flexibility to pivot quickly on where to host applications to ensure best performance and cost benefits. They also enabled micro-segmentation to increase workload-level security using VMware NSX Distributed Firewall with VMware Cloud on AWS. The team was also able to accelerate application security and networking for the university using VMware Aria Operations for Networks with VMware Cloud on AWS.
Here is what Kingston University shared about their experience of using this hybrid cloud service:
“We chose VMware technology so we could use our existing skills and wouldn’t need to reconfigure servers. We already use VMware technology, so we knew we could achieve a more seamless migration to cloud. We set out to remove the barriers to innovation, and with support from Xtravirt and VMware, we’re free to explore everything the cloud has to offer.”
– Daniel Bolton, Head of Technical Services, Kingston University
Check out this case study to know more about Kingston University’s experience with VMware Cloud on AWS.
Quality Bicycle Products
Quality Bicycle Products Accelerates its Path to the Cloud by Migrating to VMware Cloud on AWS
Founded 1981 and headquartered in Bloomington (Minnesota, USA), Quality Bicycle Products (QBP) is North America’s largest distributor of bicycles, accessories, and parts, and an industry leader in distribution, education, advocacy, and product innovation. As a certified B-corporation, QBP is committed to environmental protection and is working toward full carbon neutrality by 2030.
Earlier last year, QBP’s colocation provider decided to close down leaving them in a lurch and forcing their IT team to move the entire production environment to a new location within 14 months. After evaluating several options, including engaging with another colocation provider facility, QBP decided to migrate to the public cloud keeping in mind their long-term vision.
QBP wanted to modernize their stack in the cloud in the short timeframe and also wanted to migrate their core applications without rearchitecting or refactoring them. Additionally, as a certified B Corporation, QBP aims to be carbon neutral by 2030 and wanted to work with providers like VMware that have similar goals.
With VMware Cloud on AWS, the IT team at QBP was able to migrate 300 virtual machines (VMs) in under 14 months without refactoring or rearchitecting them. This included their workhorse enterprise resource planning (ERP), warehouse management systems and e-commerce applications. A key business impact was providing their developers with cutting-edge tools and the ability to work on frequent and faster pilot projects while keeping their traditional apps as-is using VMware Cloud on AWS. The IT team at QBP was able to achieve a stable environment to better optimize resources, improve innovation and delivery times. They also gained more clarity on TCO with the ability to produce reports & graphs at CFO level and make better decisions.
Here is what QBP has to say about their experience of using the product:
“VMware Cloud on AWS was the perfect way to accelerate our move to the cloud. We could move existing applications without refactoring or rearchitecting them and have native cloud services live on the same infrastructure. Being able to offer our developers those cutting-edge tools and keep our traditional apps was a huge win for us.” – Joe Van Ert, Systems Architect, Quality Bicycle Products
Read Quality Bicycle Product’s experience with VMware Cloud on AWS here and watch their video here.
USE CASE: DATA CENTER EXTENSION
East London NHS Foundation Trust
East London NHS Foundation Trust Scales its IT Infrastructure to Meet Rising Demand for Healthcare Services
The East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) is a National Health Service trust that provides an array of mental health and community health services in the East London region of the United Kingdom.
The team at ELFT wanted to meet rising demand for healthcare services, and to address unexpected and overwhelming stress on their systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They also needed a robust platform to deliver innovative solutions that can improve patient & service user care, e.g., patients accessing and managing their own records. Additionally, they needed to get the right digital solutions that help make a difference in how care is delivered.
To meet the above challenges, the team at ELFT chose VMware Cloud on AWS to migrate to the cloud, using the additional capacity to significantly scale its IT infrastructure, virtualize its networks, and implement a robust disaster recovery solution.
They migrated swiftly and smoothly to the cloud after a few weeks of planning together with VMware teams. After the migration, some of the benefits were very noticeable like achieving a faster experience for clinicians and hospital staff as they logged into their systems post migration. The team also put in place a robust disaster recovery solution by activating VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery features on VMware Cloud on AWS as well as enabling VMware NSX features on VMware Cloud on AWS to create virtualized network devices, including switches and routers.
“The way VMware supported us when looking at different cloud platforms, different options, attending calls with us where needed or even face-to-face meetings if required, they really went that extra mile to make sure we progressed to that platform.”
– James Slaven, Chief Technology Officer – East London NHS Foundation Trust
Read ELFT’s detailed story here and watch their video here.
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Supports Research Dynamism with Anything as a Service Approach
The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a research institute based in Lausanne, Switzerland, specializing in physical sciences and engineering. It comprises 11,000 students, 350 faculty and 6,000 staff. It is home to over 500 laboratories and research groups, each at the forefront of science and technology.
EPFL needed to change how it provided IT services to the researchers. It had to be fast, easy and reliable. It also needed to abide by Switzerland’s data sovereignty laws. Furthermore, management set the IT team a task of being able to provision a new virtual machine within 15 minutes.
With these goals in mind, the IT team at EPFL chose to use VMware products and achieve suitable results. EPFL already had a set-up with VMware Cloud on AWS for disaster recovery purposes. Next, they developed a private cloud with VMware that made better use of their existing resources. Doing so helped them meet the goal of “15-minute provisioning” for a new virtual machine (VM) and the number of VMs in use is up by 100% since deployment.
The IT team at EPFL was able to provide compute, storage and networking as well as load balancing and flexibility with VMware Cloud Foundation, protect sensitive research work with VMware NSX Distributed IDS/IPS as well as establish the necessary management control using VMware Aria Automation.
Here is what EPFL has to say about their experience of using the product:
“From an IT infrastructure perspective, we want to provide researchers with everything they need. They should be able to start their research on day one.” – Philippe Morel, Director of IT Operations and Infrastructure, EPFL
Read EPFL’s story in detail here and watch their video here.
Route Mobile
Route Mobile Migrates to VMware Cloud on AWS for the Fastest Transition and Lowest Cost to Cloud-based Infrastructure
Route Mobile (RML) is a leading cloud communication platform provider, catering to enterprises, over-the-top (OTT) players and mobile network operators (MNO). RML enterprise communication services include smart solutions in messaging, voice, email and SMS filtering, analytics and monetization. The company is headquartered in Mumbai, India, with a global presence in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America.
The customer faced several challenges that prompted their move to the cloud. They had scarce skilled manpower, reduced efficiencies, and increasing infrastructure and maintenance costs that were obstructing RML’s growth. Besides eliminating dependency on third party and private hosting services they also needed to maintain maximum uptime, greater agility, and lower manual intervention to improve customer experience and satisfaction. Additionally, they needed a solution with lower carbon footprint and better ROI compared to their existing platform.
The team at RML chose to migrate to the cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS and gained multiple benefits as a result. They ensured 100% application availability among RML’s client’s customers with VMware Cloud on AWS as well as achieved a 20% increase in its market share and projected revenue growth of 30% YoY. Additionally, the team at RML was able to host the business applications without any reskilling of manpower or downtime. They were able to put in place an agile, consumption-based infrastructure with strong operational control while achieving cost efficiencies and ease of deployment with a scalable platform.
Here is what Route Mobile has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Upgrading to a scalable platform like VMware Cloud on AWS supported by robust infrastructure, Route Mobile is able to support the business focus on product expansion, accelerated adoption of digital communication updates and solutions and omni channel platform capabilities to create deeper customer engagement.” – Ramesh Helaiya, CTO, Route Mobile
Check out RML’s success story to learn more about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS.
City of Potsdam
City of Potsdam Advances Digital Education in Schools by Expanding Data Center to the Public Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS
Situated in the southwest of Berlin, Potsdam is the capital and largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. Surrounded by lakes, rivers and forests, the city is an inspiring place to live, study and work.
But during COVID-19 school closures, there was a need to accelerate rollout of urgently needed devices in the German school system, manage devices in compliance with the EU GDPR requirements as well as absorb device management workload across all the schools effectively by a resources-constrained IT team. So, the City of Potsdam decided to advance the digital infrastructure of the German school system by expanding data center to the public cloud.
They decided to use VMware Cloud on AWS to Setup a GDPR-compliant hybrid cloud infrastructure in just a few weeks. They were able to minimize deployment time with this flexible, scalable, easy to manage solution. The City of Potsdam was also able to provide a modern educational experience – including digital services – for 25,000 students and 5,000 educators by using VMware Cloud on AWS and Workspace ONE Unified Endpoint Management.
Here is what the City of Potsdam has to say about their experience of using the product:
“With VMware Cloud on AWS and Workspace ONE UEM, we have a cloud foundation which accommodates adjustments and additions as our digital learning platform expands and matures.” – Mathias Horezky, Head of IT Infrastructure and Service, City of Potsdam
Don’t wait any further. Start your hybrid cloud journey today with VMware Cloud on AWS. Now, you can sign up for the free trial of VMware Cloud on AWS and try out the migration yourselves for free for the first 30 days. If you are interested in finding out the TCO savings, also check out the VMware Cloud on AWS TCO Calculator. And please check out some additional resources as mentioned below to learn more:
Ruchi is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware Inc. With 14+ years of strong technology, data, and marketing background, Ruchi brings deep experience in…
Looking to rapidly migrate to the cloud? Scale cost-effectively and strengthen disaster recovery? You’re not alone. Here’s how organizations are unlocking the power of hybrid cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS.
As we welcome back customers, partners, colleagues, and friends of VMware in person once again at VMware Explore 2022, one thing is unchanged – the impact that VMware Cloud on AWS has had on our customers’ cloud migration journeys.
In this blog, I want to highlight some of the recent customer stories and share our customers’ experiences with VMware Cloud on AWS. Also, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 of this blog series for more customer stories across various use cases.
Schibsted Media Group
Schibsted Moves to the Cloud to Support Rapid Expansion and Gain Competitive Advantage
Schibsted Media Group, or Schibsted, a leading media corporation in Scandinavia, wanted to create a unified digital platform for its 55+ brands portfolio, allowing each company to scale operations easily. To support their rapid growth, Schibsted’s team also knew that having a cloud strategy in place would be beneficial when acquiring new companies. It would also significantly reduce time and resources otherwise spent managing multiple vendors and local data centers.
With VMware Cloud on AWS, the team at Schibsted was able to shut down 350 on-premises servers and migrate traditional workloads and legacy software to the cloud faster than expected. Their enterprise systems running apps such as Newspilot, SAP, HR systems, and a variety of advertising platforms now all run on VMware Cloud on AWS. Working with VMware, Schibsted has achieved considerable cost savings compared to on-premises data centers and hopes to save more on operating costs with every new acquisition in the future.
Here is what Schibsted has to say about their experience of using the service:
“We have a public cloud strategy, and traditional workloads are now running on VMware Cloud on AWS. It is a scalable platform that we are taking full advantage of to become cloud-native. We were one of the first customers in the Nordics who started using it.”
– Ken Sivertsen, Cloud Infrastructure Architect, Schibsted Enterprise Technology
Check out the case study to learn more about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS.
Lotte
Lotte Moves to the Cloud for Future-Readiness
When several divisions of Lotte merged into a single corporate entity in 2018—the year of its 70th anniversary—they decided to embark on digital transformation (DX) journey to enhance synergies and encourage business growth. After merging, Lotte found it challenging to ensure smooth business operations and employee experience due to silos between the merged departments. This had the potential to impact business development. Moreover, Lotte had been operating an on-premises VDI environment on Windows 7. When Windows 7 support ended, there was an urgent need to move to Windows 10 to strengthen the Lotte VDI resources and improve their system more broadly.
Lotte decided to use VMware Cloud on AWS because it offered the agility and flexibility of the cloud with a proven track record and made migration easy. With the help of VMware and partnering with DXC Technology Japan, and AWS Japan, Lotte has now migrated 4,000 VDI units to VMware Cloud on AWS. Doing so has improved employee experience and maximized business profitability. It has also positioned them well for future expansion and helped them reduce the time needed for infrastructure maintenance and operations.
Here is what Lotte has to say about their experience of using the product:
“We’re currently running VMware Cloud on AWS VDI environment alongside our on-premises environment and there is no difference between them. The user experience is virtually unchanged and everyone finds it easy to use.”
– Mr. Hisaaki Ogata, Senior Manager of ICT Strategic Division, Lotte Corporation
KDDI Corporation Innovates from Modern Applications.
Keeping its agile mindset front and center, KDDI Corporation needed a go-to-market strategy to deploy its applications and deliver new services more rapidly than before. Their developers wanted the ability to concentrate on app development above all things. They also wanted monitoring, log collection, and security features integrated into the platform. In addition, the IT team at KDDI expected their environments to become more and more complex as KDDI deployed applications at the edge and in the cloud.
Solutions like VMware Cloud on AWS and Project Pacific helped KDDI achieve consistent control over such complex environments with a single portal.
Here is what KDDI Corporation has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Going forward, our environments will become more and more complex as we deploy applications at the edge and in the cloud. So, we are looking to VMware Cloud on AWS and Project Pacific to help us achieve consistent control over such complex environments with a single portal.”
– Takeshi Maehara, General Manager, KDDI Corporation
State of Louisiana Unifies IT Service Delivery, Improves Medicare Enrollment, and Rapidly Responds to Disasters with VMware Cloud on AWS
Reforming government is a constant process requiring continuous innovation, creativity, and vigilance, including the technology on which government operates. For the State of Louisiana, that meant embarking on a statewide initiative to transform security and modernize data center operations. The goal: Take IT from legacy mainframes to cloud-based, mobile-ready application delivery. Louisiana decided to partner with VMware to modernize its data centers, transform digital workspaces for users, and move toward a common operating model that spans both private and public clouds.
To extend its on-premises data centers and easily migrate application workloads to the public cloud, the state decided to use VMware Cloud on AWS. With VMware SDDC software running on the AWS cloud, the state can seamlessly integrate with the public cloud and scale easily while leveraging existing VMware skill sets. It can also use familiar tools, such as vRealize Suite and NSX, to extend intelligent operations and micro-segmentation to the public cloud, helping keep its environment manageable and secure. As Louisiana adopts a public cloud-first strategy to reduce costs further, it will use VMware Cloud on AWS to evolve into DevOps methodologies and become an even more efficient broker of IT services.
Here is what the State of Louisiana has to say about their experience of using the product:
“VMware Cloud on AWS will help us take advantage of the elasticity of public cloud, giving us workload portability, a platform for next-gen apps, and easy access to AWS services.”
– Michael Allison, CTO, State of Louisiana
Learn more about State of Louisiana’s experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS in this case study
GuideOne
VMware Cloud on AWS Enables Cloud-Native Capabilities Without Increasing IT Budget For GuideOne
GuideOne, an insurance firm in the United States with over 600 employees and more than $500 million in annual revenue, maintains an environment of 16 ESXi hosts and 800 virtual machines (VMs).
The organization faced several challenges that prompted its investment in VMware Cloud on AWS. They supported workloads with on-premises hardware but wanted to move to the cloud to avoid the headaches and costs associated with managing its on-premises deployment. The organization also wanted the cost and capability benefits of cloud computing, but it wanted to minimize the likelihood of outages, delays, and cost overruns that could occur when migrating legacy workloads to the public cloud.
The move to VMware Cloud on AWS produced some great results:
Eliminated 40% of its data center footprint and reduced power costs
Reallocated resources to strategic IT initiatives
Invested in its own employees and avoided costs of recruiting cloud-native skills
Avoided hardware expansion and refresh costs
Avoided costly application rearchitecture
Flattened IT budget while providing business with new capabilities
Enabled a more responsive and compliant security environment
Here is what GuideOne has to say about their experience of using the product:
“[VMware Cloud on AWS] is a quick way of getting into the cloud. You don’t have to do as much QA when it comes to switching over the workloads because you are doing it at the hypervisor level, and you’re really only worried about performance and latency.”
VMware Cloud on AWS Provides Frictionless Path to Capital and Operational Cost Savings to a global financial services firm
A global financial services firm headquartered in the United States with over 10,000 employees and more than $3 billion in annual revenue, now maintains three software-defined data centers (SDDCs), with a total of 42 hosts and roughly 800 virtual machines (VMs).
Prior to investing in VMware Cloud on AWS, the organization relied on outsource vendors to maintain its data centers. When the contract was up, the organization could not easily switch providers and did not want to reinvest in building a new data center. In an on-premises environment, the organization was also limited to inefficient disaster recovery processes, which hindered development teams. Additionally, a portfolio of 150 applications, many of which were legacy applications, meant unnecessary maintenance and operations costs. The organization was struggling to modernize its application portfolio due to the speed of service of the vendors managing its on-premises environment.
The business decision-makers were vary of upcoming data center deadlines
The move to VMware Cloud on AWS produced some great results:
Retired on-premises data center and reduced annual operating costs by 59%
Modernized application portfolio, saving $200K in annual spend
Improved business resilience across 35 offices during the pandemic by being in the cloud
Here is what this Financial Services organization has to say about their experience of using the product:
“Modern applications require modern infrastructure. So today we’re upscaling, we’re new-skilling, and we’re reskilling. I’ve been trying to retire apps my whole time here and was not able to until we moved to the cloud [with VMware Cloud on AWS]”
– Associate Director of Cloud Infrastructure, Financial Services organization
So don’t wait any further. Start your cloud migration and application modernization journey with VMware Cloud on AWS. If you are interested in finding out how much you could save, try the VMware Cloud on AWS TCO Calculator. To learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS, here are some learning resources. Or, you can get started now with VMware Cloud on AWS by purchasing the service online.
Ruchi is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware Inc. With 14+ years of strong technology, data, and marketing background, Ruchi brings deep experience in…
