Amazon Elastic VMware Service (Amazon EVS) is a native AWS service that lets you run full VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) environments directly inside your Amazon VPC. That means you can operate vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and SDDC Manager on AWS infrastructure, using the same VMware tools and processes your teams already know.

Instead of replacing your data center, EVS is designed to extend it. You keep your existing VMware investments and operational model, while gaining cloud capabilities such as on‑demand capacity, flexible pricing, and access to over 200 native AWS services. In practice, you manage EVS much like your current VMware environment, but with the added benefit of running it in the AWS cloud.

EVS is built to help you reimagine your VMware environment as a true hybrid cloud.

• Same VMware stack and tools: EVS runs the complete VCF stack, so your admins use the same interfaces and workflows they use on‑premises. There’s no need for broad retraining or major process changes.
• Network stretching with VMware HCX: Using VMware HCX (Hybrid Cloud Extension), you can stretch your on‑premises networks into AWS. This allows VMs to move between your data center and EVS without changing IP addresses, which helps avoid application downtime and complex reconfiguration.
• Full administrative control: Unlike fully managed offerings, EVS gives you complete access to the VMware stack. You can design your own architecture, add third‑party tools, and tune performance just as you would in your own data center.

The result is a hybrid setup where workloads can live wherever they make the most sense—on‑premises or in AWS—while you maintain consistent operations across both.

EVS is designed to help you reshape how you scale VMware while making better use of what you already own.

• Faster time to value: You can deploy complete VMware environments in hours instead of weeks, which helps you respond quickly to new projects or unexpected capacity needs.
• Hybrid flexibility: You can extend workloads between on‑premises and AWS without disruption, which supports burst capacity, data center extension, or regional expansion without building new physical sites.
• Cost optimization: EVS reduces the need to purchase and maintain additional on‑premises hardware. On AWS, you can take advantage of pay‑as‑you‑go pricing and savings options such as EC2 Savings Plans and Reserved Instances.
• Preserve VMware investments: You can bring your existing VCF subscriptions from Broadcom into EVS, so you continue to get value from current licenses while extending them into the cloud.
• Cloud integration: Because EVS runs inside your Amazon VPC, your VMware workloads can directly integrate with 200+ native AWS services—for analytics, security, storage, AI/ML, and more—often without needing to refactor applications.

To understand the specific impact for your environment, a workload assessment can help map which applications are best suited for EVS and what the cost profile would look like over time.