VMware Cloud On Amazon Web Services Is Now Live

VMware Cloud is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), less than a year after the former rivals became surprise partners.

The deal was announced last October with the stated ambition of easing fears surrounding cloud migration and management. The two companies plan to target businesses running on-premise virtualisation but keen to harness the advantages of the public cloud.

VMware Cloud on AWS delivers VMware’s software-defined data centre (SDDC) platform, which comprises vSphere, VMware VSAN and VMware NSX virtualisation technologies with VMware VSAN, over AWS infrastructure to offer a “seamlessly integrated” hybrid cloud.

VMware AWS

Through this combination, VMware lets customers combine existing investments in virtualisation, tools and training with the feature set, regular updates and scalability of AWS.

VMware has struck a similar deal with IBM Softlayer and these partnerships also prevent locking-in customers to using one cloud platform or choosing between on-premise or cloud deployments.

The idea is they can get the best of both worlds by benefiting from scalability and flexibility without sacrificing existing applications, hardware and skillsets, or portability.

“VMware Cloud on AWS gives customers a seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud that delivers the same architecture, capabilities, and operational experience across both their vSphere-based on-premises environment and AWS,” added Pat Gelsinger, VMware CEO.

Starting today, VMware Cloud for AWS will be available from Amazon’s data centres in Oregon and worldwide from the beginning of next year. The two companies will also work on adding other services, such as data recovery, in the near future.

For its part, Amazon gets access to VMware’s significant enterprise customer base and thus help them compete in what has become a very competitive market between some of the largest technology companies in the world.

“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 Andy Jassy, AWS CEO.

“The majority of the world’s enterprises have virtualised 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.”

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