VMworld: VMware Expands vCloud Air With New German Data Centre

VMware is to open a new data centre in Germany as part of the ongoing expansion of vCloud Air, the service formerly known as vCloud Hybrid Cloud Services.

vCloud Air allows businesses to move workloads between on premise IT and the cloud using the same VMware tools and without any additional costs or reconfiguration. It’s similar to Amazon Web Services, but with the added benefit of integration with existing virtualised environments,

The company claims this hybrid strategy will allow firms to move from the experimental phase of the cloud into the “professional era” and beyond. vCloud Air launched in the US last year and has since been launched in parts of Europe, including the UK, and Asia.

German data centre

“The timing to enter the hybrid cloud market could not have been better,” boasted Bill Fathers, senior vice president and general manager of Hybrid Cloud at Vmware, adding that clients had been secured in 11 major markets.

VMware currently operates two vCloud data centres in the UK after it opened a new site in Chessington in July to complement its existing facility in Slough. CEO Pat Gelsinger said Gemany was a natural choice for its second European location as it is the firm’s second biggest market on the continent and improved its compliance with EU and German laws on privacy and data sovereignty.

“Germany has some of the most interesting and important privacy laws,” he said. “[It was] a relatively straight forward decision.”

The German data centre will go live in the first quarter of 2014, but VMware freely admits it cannot realistically open facilities in all the markets it operates in. Instead, it is cultivating a vast partner network that allows it to offer services in 100 countries. For example, in Japan it has teamed up with Softbank, and in China it offers vCloud Air through China Telecom’s data centres.

vCloud Air expansion

“We think it’s extremely important to have a choice of providers,” said Fathers, adding that the company’s network of 3,900 partners gives it “unequalled coverage.”

Fathers also outlined a number of other new features being added to vCloud Air, including a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool called continuous-integration-as-a-service and database-as-a-service tools that allow businesses to store structured and unstructured dtabases in a cloud.

VMware has also launched an object storage beta using parent company EMC’s ViPR technology that will form the basis of futre file storage and big data applications and is integrating AirWatch Mobile Device Management (MDM) into the platform.

Earlier this year, the company outlined VMware vCloud Air Virtual Private Cloud onDemand, which provides instant on-demand access to vCloud with users only billed for the services consumed. A beta was announced at VMWorld US and an early access programme will begin on November 17.

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