AWS Launches Amazon EVS to Simplify VMware Cloud Migration
Key Takeaways
- What Amazon EVS is and how it runs VMware Cloud Foundation natively on AWS
- Why EVS eliminates the re-platforming bottleneck that stalls most VMware migrations
- How organizations achieve up to 46% cost reduction compared to legacy cloud options
- Current regional availability and how to evaluate EVS for your workloads
Organizations running VMware infrastructure face a familiar dilemma: stay on-premises and absorb the rising costs of hardware refresh cycles, licensing changes, and data center operations — or migrate to the cloud and accept the significant effort of re-platforming or refactoring every workload.
AWS launched Amazon Elastic VMware Service (EVS) to eliminate that tradeoff. EVS lets organizations run their VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) environments natively on AWS infrastructure, using the same VMware tools and processes their teams already know.
The Challenge of Traditional VMware Migration
Migrating VMware workloads to the cloud has historically required one of two painful approaches:
- Re-platforming: Converting VMware virtual machines to run on native cloud compute services. This means rebuilding machine images, reconfiguring networking, adapting monitoring and backup processes, and testing every application against the new platform.
- Refactoring: Rewriting applications to use cloud-native services — containers, serverless, managed databases. While this delivers the best long-term architecture, it demands substantial engineering investment and months of migration work per application.
Both approaches consume significant time and resources. They require staff retraining, disrupt operational workflows, and introduce risk at every stage. For organizations with hundreds or thousands of VMware VMs, the migration timeline stretches into years.
The result is that many organizations stay on-premises longer than they should, continuing to pay the hardware, licensing, and operational costs of maintaining VMware infrastructure while competitors gain the flexibility of cloud.
Introducing Amazon Elastic VMware Service
EVS takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of requiring workloads to change, it brings the VMware platform into AWS.
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Start a conversation →With EVS, organizations deploy complete VCF environments within an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Workloads run in secure, isolated sections of AWS infrastructure. Teams continue using their existing VMware tools — vSphere, vSAN, NSX — with no changes to their operational playbooks.
How it works:
- Native VCF on AWS: EVS runs VMware Cloud Foundation directly on bare-metal AWS infrastructure, not as a nested virtualization layer. This means full VMware feature compatibility and native performance.
- VPC integration: EVS clusters deploy inside your existing VPC, inheriting your network architecture, security groups, and connectivity to other AWS services.
- Flexible management: Choose between self-managing your VMware environment or engaging an AWS Partner for managed operations.
- License portability: Bring your existing VCF licenses to EVS, preserving your software investment.
Key Benefits
Speed and Cost Savings
The most immediate advantage is migration speed. Workloads that would take weeks or months to re-platform can migrate to EVS in hours using VMware vMotion or HCX. The infrastructure is already VMware-compatible — there is nothing to convert.
On the cost side, AWS reports a 46% cost reduction versus legacy VMware cloud options. Combined with AWS pay-as-you-go pricing and eligibility for the AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), the economics shift significantly in favor of migration.
AWS Service Integration
Running VMware workloads on EVS does not mean staying isolated from AWS services. VMware applications can connect directly to:
- Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP: Enterprise-grade shared storage accessible from both VMware VMs and native AWS services.
- Veeam Backup and Replication: Data protection that spans VMware and AWS-native workloads.
- AWS analytics, AI, and serverless: Once workloads run on EVS, teams can incrementally adopt native AWS services — connecting VMware applications to
Lambda,SageMaker,Redshift, orBedrockwithout a full re-architecture.
This hybrid approach lets organizations migrate quickly to EVS, stabilize operations, and then modernize incrementally — rather than attempting a risky all-at-once transformation.
Availability and Early Adoption
EVS is available in the following AWS regions:
| Region | Locations |
|---|---|
| US | East (N. Virginia, Ohio), West (Oregon) |
| Europe | Dublin, Frankfurt |
| Asia Pacific | Tokyo |
AWS has announced plans to expand availability to additional regions. For organizations with workloads in regions not yet supported, a phased migration strategy — moving what you can now and planning for the rest — is practical.
Early adopters include Aeromexico, Huron Consulting Group, and Effectual, each citing reduced migration timelines and preserved operational continuity as key outcomes.
Remangu plans and executes VMware-to-AWS migrations through our professional services practice — from assessment and architecture design through migration execution and ongoing operations. If you are evaluating Amazon EVS for your VMware workloads, let’s scope the project.