There are several topics to consider:
When you want to migrate VMware vSphere-based workloads into the cloud you need to differentiate between two scenarios:
- The cloud provider uses vSphere (ESXi) - in this case no refactoring or workload conversion is necessary. This saves a lot of effort, and it also ensures you can move back into your private cloud if you wanted to do so at a later time. This is the greatest flexibility. Examples: IBM Cloud, VMware Cloud on AWS, other VMware service providers
- The cloud provider uses a different virtual machine format - in this case you need to refactor or convert your virtual machines, this can be a long and complex process, and it usually is very hard to move back to your private cloud later. Examples: native AWS, Microsoft Azure
In the case of option 1 above: To speed up your migration, or even do mass-migration between clouds you can check out the VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension.
VMware Cloud Foundation helps, because it is the easiest way to build and maintain your VMware software defined-data center private cloud. It does not do the migration itself, it is the infrastructure below. When service providers like IBM use VMware Cloud Foundation, and you have VMware CLoud Foundation in your own data center - then you have the same architectures (vSphere + vSAN + NSX) which makes it much easier to distribute applications, and you have a common management experience.
I hope this helps.
