This article is based on a theCUBE interview with Mark Lohmeyer, SVP and General Manager of the Cloud Platform Business Unit at VMware, conducted by Dave Vellante and John Furrier at VMworld 2019 in San Francisco. Original source: SiliconAngle.com.
A Partnership Built on Joint Engineering
In the hybrid cloud space, the relationship between VMware and Amazon Web Services has produced one of the more substantive vendor partnerships in recent memory. VMware Cloud on AWS is not simply a reseller arrangement — according to Mark Lohmeyer, VMware’s SVP and GM of the Cloud Platform Business Unit, hundreds of engineers on both sides are actively optimizing VMware software to run as a managed service on top of AWS infrastructure.
The practical result for customers is that the heavy lifting of hardware upgrades and VMware software lifecycle management shifts away from their own teams. VMware handles those operational concerns, while customers retain access to the broader AWS service ecosystem alongside their familiar VMware tooling.
“I think both VMware and AWS believe strongly in understanding what customers are looking for and making sure we’re delivering that value to them.”
— Mark Lohmeyer, SVP & GM, Cloud Platform Business Unit, VMware (VMworld 2019)
Traction at VMworld 2019: Growth Metrics
At VMworld 2019, Lohmeyer shared adoption figures comparing the service’s status year-over-year at the time of the event:
- 4x increase in the number of customers on VMware Cloud on AWS
- 9x increase in the number of virtual machines (VMs) running on the service
Lohmeyer noted that the VM figure is particularly telling: it shows not just new customer acquisition, but existing customers significantly expanding their footprint — a signal of growing confidence in the platform for production workloads.
Compressing Migration Timelines
One of the more striking claims from Lohmeyer concerns migration velocity. Historically, moving enterprise VMware workloads to a public cloud required re-factoring and re-platforming applications upfront — a process that could consume three or more years before any meaningful cloud benefit was realized.
VMware Cloud on AWS changes that calculus by allowing workloads to be lifted and shifted to the cloud without requiring application changes first. Because the underlying infrastructure is still VMware-based (vSphere, NSX, vSAN, and vCenter), existing VMs migrate without modification. Lohmeyer cited the ability to compress what was previously a three-year migration project into a matter of months.
“We could take a migration project that would have previously taken three years, and we could do it in a few months.”
— Mark Lohmeyer, VMworld 2019
Migrate First, Modernize at Your Own Pace
VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger framed the strategic choice at the VMworld 2019 keynote as: “Modernize and migrate, or migrate and modernize.” Both orderings are intentional — the platform supports either path.
The traditional cloud adoption model pressures teams to modernize applications before migration, forcing a large upfront engineering investment. VMware Cloud on AWS enables an alternative sequence:
- Migrate quickly — move existing VMware workloads to AWS without application refactoring, using live migration capabilities.
- Operate in a familiar environment — continue using vCenter, NSX networking, and existing VMware operational tooling in the cloud.
- Modernize incrementally — adopt AWS-native services (databases, machine learning, serverless, containers) on a schedule driven by business need rather than migration deadlines.
The “live migrate” capability Gelsinger highlighted refers to the ability to move running VMs between on-premises VMware environments and VMware Cloud on AWS with minimal disruption — a key differentiator from approaches that require downtime or application-level re-architecture.
Solving the Multicloud Management Problem
One of the harder questions in enterprise cloud strategy is how to maintain consistent operations across a heterogeneous mix of private cloud, multiple public clouds, and edge environments. Lohmeyer described VMware’s answer as operating on two tracks:
1. Consistent Operations
Management tooling that works across environments regardless of the underlying infrastructure. VMware’s CloudHealth platform was cited as an example — it provides visibility into cloud spend across multiple cloud providers and enables cost optimization over time. This layer is designed to function whether workloads sit on VMware-based infrastructure or on native cloud services.
2. Consistent Infrastructure
Delivering the same VMware Cloud Foundation stack (compute, network, storage) consistently across on-premises data centers, multiple public clouds, and edge locations. The goal is to eliminate the operational fragmentation that arises when each environment requires distinct tooling and skillsets.
Together, these two tracks represent VMware’s answer to the “multicloud paradox” — the desire to use best-of-breed services from multiple providers without sacrificing unified governance, security, and compliance posture.
What This Means for DevOps and Platform Teams
For teams managing VMware-heavy on-premises estates, the VMware Cloud on AWS model offers a practical migration path that avoids the organizational risk of a forced modernization project. Key operational implications include:
- Existing skills transfer: vCenter, NSX, and vSAN administrators can manage cloud-hosted VMs using the same tools and processes they use on-premises.
- Reduced migration risk: No application refactoring is required to move to the cloud, reducing the chance of regression or performance issues introduced during migration.
- Access to AWS services: Once workloads are in VMware Cloud on AWS, teams can integrate with AWS-native services (RDS, S3, Lambda, EKS, and others) without a full re-platform.
- Hardware lifecycle offloaded: VMware manages underlying host upgrades and software patching, reducing operational burden on internal infrastructure teams.
Context: VMworld 2019
This interview took place at VMworld 2019 in San Francisco. The growth metrics, product capabilities, and partnership details described here reflect the state of VMware Cloud on AWS as communicated at that event. The service has continued to evolve since 2019; readers evaluating the platform for current use should consult VMware’s and AWS’s current documentation for up-to-date specifications and pricing.