One does not simply run VMware in the cloud. 

My first response every time, Side eye. Now that we have been doing cloud for years, do we really need VMware anymore?

How does VMware help me run a hybrid cloud?

Does leveraging VMware skills save me anything?

Do I still need the skill sets to do cloud stuff? 

Are Platform Services Engineers really worth their weight in Bit Coin?

How does VMware help me run a hybrid cloud?

To answer the first question, what is hybrid cloud and what does it provide. Hybrid cloud is having edge and cloud computing set up to allow, specific data security, compliance, and protection. I think the relevant buzz word is Data Sovereignty.

 

The ability to rapidly scale and reduce workloads as needed by utilizing other peoples stuff and paying for it.  (Basic Cloud) All the work that needs to be done to make your applications cloud native and embrace DevXOps. 

What are the selling points to VMwares hybrid cloud operations. Perceived secure managed connections to the cloud. VMware takes the secure DMZ and Provider VPN end points and adds a layer of cost and "configuration" management. 

 

The ability to scale data center operations to the cloud? The cloud is a different animal, you don't breed pigs the same way you breed cows. There are efficiencies in cloud that are not realized by laying VMWare over the top. Why am I trying to perpetuate Click ops to the cloud, when the goal is to have a zero click environment? 

Centralized logging and reporting. This one gets me. You are going to use Log insight and vRops instead of cloud watch and a cloud ready logging tool? 

What I have found with how VMware helps you with Hybrid cloud, Is. vCF (vmware cloud foundations) allows you to run the stuff in your data center more like cloud, you start adopting best practices and back filling the holes in data center ops. 

Does leveraging VMWare skills save me anything?

The cloud is a unique animal and thus requires a unique skill set. What does a VMware admin know about S3 buckets and secure cloud configurations, let alone, Secure AMI Pipelines. 

VMware skills are just now modernizing to allow integration into DevXOps, we are starting to blow away vSphere and vCenter as frequently as most OS's. We have finally realized the dream of rapid re-provisioning being faster than patching. These are skill we have back ported from cloud to do the same thing on site. A majority of the VMware admins still lack these skills, thus we have vCenter servers that are sacred cats.

There is a whole topic here about modern VMware skill set vs Legacy. If your VMware admin has a modern skill set, a lot of the processes and outcomes are the same its just a different technology skill set.

Do I still need the skill sets to do cloud stuff? 

Are Platform Services Engineers really worth their weight in Bit Coin?

These two go together. Having worked with a few excellent Cloud admins / Engineers. One now does AI and the other Data science / Manager. If you find yourself a good. caveat good. A Cloud Platform services engineer, who can automate all things and will tell horror stories about deploying 500 nodes at high noon, for a credit card processor, and taking down AWS DNS services for a region. Pay them what they ask. As if they had kidnapped your family and pets. Then keep them happy. Let them tell you how to run things. They are not mere admins but gods among men. 

The admins and Engineers with extreme cloud skill sets who can tell you why you don't do active directory with Azure, are worth keeping, and they will tell you....