Computacenter one of the first off the blocks with VMware Cloud on AWS

The arrival of the VMware Cloud on AWS has been something the UK has had to wait for with it first being rolled out in the US but now here it should provide more flexibility for enterprise customers.

Two partners will start providing the VMware Cloud on AWS - Computacenter and Softcat - giving customers the chance to migrate vSphere-based private cloud workloads into Amazon's public cloud.

VMware first made the AWS option available in the US last August and has been working to expand that globally with a staggered roll out that meant the UK was the next to go live.

“Since launching VMware Cloud on AWS just six months ago, we’ve seen tremendous interest from our global customer base and multi-national enterprises. Today marks an essential starting point for our global expansion to deliver unparalleled hybrid cloud services in major geographies around the world,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager, Cloud Platform Business Unit, VMware.

From a channel point of view the offering should appeal to the many enterprises that are operating with a hybrid cloud structure.

“For Enterprise IT customers, there is a significant degree of complexity and variation of needs for cloud adoption," said Paul Casey, chief technologist at Computacenter.

"Different business, cultural and operating factors are dictating the relative start point, technology and cloud direction, and the pace of adoption," he added.

Computacenter has worked with VMware for a number of years and has already achieved the VMWare on AWS competency to prove it has the right skills to support customers migrating from private to public cloud platforms.

VMware is encouraging other partners to go through the competency process to get into a position to be able to support customers wanting to use the AWS option. And is making training, support and joint  marketing funds available to support the programme.