VMware has kicked off its annual US VMworld conference with a battery of product launches and partnerships, including the initial availability of VMware Cloud on AWS.
VMware Cloud on AWS allows users to run the company's software-defined data centre solution to the cloud giant's platform. According to the virtualisation firm, this will enable customers to run "consistent VMware vSphere-based private, public, and hybrid cloud environments, with optimised access to AWS services".
The launch has been nearly a year in the making, with the initial announcement of a collaboration between AWS and VMware made back in October last year.
"With the availability of VMware Cloud on AWS, for the first time customers can operate a consistent and seamless hybrid IT environment that combines the VMware software they love with the unmatched functionality, security, and operational expertise of the AWS Cloud," said AWS CEO, Andy Jassy.
"The majority of the world's enterprises have virtualized their data centers with VMware, and now these customers can easily move applications between their on-premises environments and AWS without having to purchase any new hardware, rewrite their applications, or modify their operations."
The product will be sold and managed by VMware.
Dell EMC collaboration
The availability of VMware Cloud on AWS has spawned a number of related collaborations and partnerships, including one with Dell EMC.
The companies, which are now both part of Dell Technologies, have announced a partnership that will bring two of Dell EMC's data protection products to VMware Cloud on AWS.
Data Domain and Data Protection Suite for Applications are being made available to customers using VMware's new cloud offering. The products will, the organisations claim, offer the same level of data protection on the AWS cloud as they do for on-premise and hybrid environments.
Beth Phalen, president of data protection at Dell EMC, said: "Data protection needs and challenges don't go away even as customers move to a software-defined data center, and the need for familiarity and simplicity is incredibly important as companies work to do more with less in a software-defined world."
She added: "This new stage of our partnership with VMware is designed to give customers peace of mind for their data in VMware Cloud on AWS."
Partnership with DXC
Finally, DXC has been announced as one of the first channel partners to provide VMware Cloud for AWS in a managed hosting capacity.
DXC Managed Cloud Services, as the offering is called, will help companies in their digital transformation and "accelerate their journey to hybrid cloud" using VMware tools combined with DXC's value-added propositions.
Additional services offered through DXC for VMware Cloud on AWS include workload portability between VMware-powered private clouds and the AWS public cloud and hybrid cloud automation.
"VMware and DXC have a long-standing history of building, selling and delivering next-generation technology services to enable the digital transformation journey of our mutual clients, and we look forward to accelerating growth via this expanded partnership with DXC," said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware.
Cloud Pro will be reporting live from VMworld Europe, which is held from 11 to 13 September in Barcelona. Be sure to come back for all the latest UK and EMEA-related VMware news then.
