Preface

VMware vCloud Air is a public cloud platform built on the VMware vSphere and the VMware vCloud Director platforms. It provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) on a pay-per-use subscription model. Currently, it provides three types of services for its customers, namely Dedicated Cloud, Virtual Private Cloud, and Disaster Recovery.

VMware vCloud Air has come a long way from its early inception in 2013 as vCloud Hybrid Service. It wasn't until August 2014 that vCloud Hybrid Service was rebranded as vCloud Air. Today, vCloud Air has made its presence felt globally by having world-class data centers across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Using these data centers, customers can extend their on-premise infrastructure to vCloud Air by leveraging a host of VMware products and services, such as direct connect, vCloud connector, VMware NSX services, and so on. This provides a lot of flexibility and agility to organizations that are looking to actively expand their resources, but do not want to invest heavily in infrastructure startups. And now with vSphere 6 launched, VMware is actively looking to integrate its management, operations, and automations suite of products with vCloud Air, thus making it easy for enterprise customers to leverage and extend their existing on-premise portfolio of applications to vCloud Air.

This book will provide you with a step-by-step guide to and, hands-on learning experience with VMware vCloud Air. With easy-to-follow instructions, ample screenshots to refer to, and a host of best practices and tips, it will give you a practical understanding that will help you get started with VMware vCloud Air.