VMware Deletes Tweet On Public Cloud Service Launch

A mysterious Twitter message from VMware has fuelled rumours that the virtualisation giant is planning to launch its own public cloud service based on the vCloud technology it provides – even though the ~Tweet was quickly deleted.

Reports have circulated for some time that VMware is preparing its own enterprise-grade Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering to compete with the likes of Amazon EC2, and the Twitter message appeared to reinforce this, stating: “VMware is prepping a vCloud-based public cloud service!”

Service ‘in testing’

The message included a link to a report suggesting that VMware has begun inviting customers to take part in a private beta-test of the rumoured public cloud service.

The message, posted to more than 31,000 followers of VMware’s vCloud Twitter account on Friday morning, was quickly deleted, but not before news websites such as CRN took screenshots of it. VMware did not immediately respond to a TechWeekEurope request for comment on the matter.

However, a number of reports have for some time indicated that VMware is developing a public cloud service to rival that offered by Amazon, which could be ready for launch by mid-April.

VMware has been building up its vCloud product line for the past two years, most recently via acquisitions, and in February of this year the company launched its vCloud Integration Manager to help cloud service providers automate the delivery and operations of VMware vCloud Director-based clouds.

Partner offerings

However, to date the company has left the actual deployment of public cloud offerings to its partners, with more than 200 service providers currently offering vCloud-based services in 31 countries.

Last year VMware did launch a trial cloud service, called vCloud Service Evaluation, which allows potential customers to try out vCloud-based services on VMware’s own infrastructure, but for production services customers must switch to a vCloud-based public cloud provided by a partner.

The situation appears likely to change in the near future, if reports of VMware’s plans are to be believed, with competitive pressure from Amazon driving VMware to take an increasingly active role in cloud services.

At its Partner Exchange conference last month VMware chief executive Pat Gelsinger made it clear the company is targeting the public cloud in general and Amazon in particular. If a corporate workload goes to Amazon, “you lose, and we have lost forever,” he reportedly said.

vCloud-based service

VMware’s public cloud offering is to be based on the same vCloud stack used by its partners, as well as the vCloud Director management platform, according to rumours. VMware parent EMC is rumoured to be planning to integrate its Avamar backup and recovery products in to the VMware offering.

In the service provider market VMware is competing with numerous other alternatives, notably OpenStack, which is backed by heavyweights such as IBM.

IBM said last week it will use the open source OpenStack platform as the basis for its future cloud products, including the new SmartCloud Orchestrator service.

While OpenStack has been seen as a VMware competitor, VMware is also a supporter of the technology, applying to join the OpenStack Foundation last year.

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