VMware to ease hybrid cloud deployments

VMware is bringing together its VMware Cloud Foundation infrastructure stack and the VMware Tanzu application platform into a single software stack that can be run in a hybrid, multicloud environment.

Dubbed VMware Cloud, the new offering will provide enterprises with a consistent infrastructure, Kubernetes platform and a cloud management layer, while being able to connect to the native cloud services from the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud.

“VMware Cloud is the first cloud that’s tailored for both traditional and modern applications,” said Raghu Raghuram, VMware’s chief operating officer for products and cloud services.

“It’s suitable for operators that are familiar with all the VMware tooling; and for developers, it’s available on-premise and on the cloud, giving them the choice of connecting to the native cloud services they want and at the same time providing them with unified operations and security,” he said.

Speaking to regional media last week, Raghuram claimed that VMware Cloud will offer the fastest path to application modernisation, with 80% increase in developer productivity and 46% faster cloud migration than any other mechanism, along with 59% lower operational costs.

“This is a very compelling value proposition for customers that are on the datacentre today and wish to embark on their cloud and application modernisation journey,” he said.

With VMware Cloud, VMware is also introducing the VMware Cloud Universal flexible subscription model that lets enterprises purchase a set of credits that can be redeemed to consume any eligible service anytime during the length of their contracts.

They can also migrate perpetual on-premise VMware licences to VMware Cloud and convert unused credits in their VMware Cloud Foundation subscriptions to deploy VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.

Tim Sheedy, principal adviser at Ecosystm, told Computer Weekly that VMware Cloud will address a key challenge that VMware customers have been facing, that is, navigating access to VMware’s suite of products along with managing licences in multiple cloud environments.

“Bringing these products under a single access point and providing the power of the entire platform will simplify both the acquisition of the solutions and the management of VMware-based hybrid cloud environments,” he said.

Sheedy added that the move will also strengthen VMware’s position in the market, primarily because the VMware platform has always been more powerful as an entire platform even though enterprises often just acquire components of it.

“For those who have gone all in on VMware as their virtualisation platform of choice, VMware Cloud should simplify their solution and provide more ease and flexibility to move their workloads between cloud environments – with native management and security regardless of location,” he said.

Major cloud suppliers have been eyeing VMware workloads for a while now and have introduced services such as Google Cloud VMware Engine and Oracle Cloud VMware Solution.

Asked by Computer Weekly if there is a pathway to VMware Cloud for enterprises that have existing contracts with hyperscale cloud providers to run VMware workloads, Raghuram said: “Customers that currently use the hyperscalers will likely end up taking advantage of the hyperscalers’ own programmes and hyperscalers obviously have some similar programmes as well. So, that’s what they will do.”

Sheedy noted that VMware, for now, appears to have built VMware Cloud for “friendly” Dell EMC systems and has extended it via VMware Cloud Universal to AWS, its original public cloud provider for running VMware workloads.

But if VMware Cloud is successful, partnerships with other cloud providers for the VMware Cloud Universal programme could follow. “We can possibly better understand the rate of adoption by the pace at which the other hyperscalers race to have their clouds included,” Sheedy said.