VMware hedging bets with multi-cloud approach

Partnerships with the four biggest cloud providers have been secured over the last two years

VMware has cemented its place as the frontrunner in multi-cloud following partnerships with the four biggest cloud providers, according to its COO Sanjay Poonen.

Speaking at VMworld, Poonen highlighted deals with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google and IBM - made over the last two years - as proof that VMware is the leader when it comes to a multi-cloud approach.

VMware announced the first of the deals, with IBM, in February last year, before following this up with an announcement that its cloud will be available on AWS.

A partnership with Google around container services was recently announced at VMworld US, while a deal with Microsoft that will see VMware's Horizon available on Azure was announced in May.

"We believe the world is a multi-cloud world," Poonen said. "We are going to be relevant in all the clouds.

"In addition to what we've done on AWS, we announced earlier this year that we're offering Horizon, our VDI desktop as-a-service, on Azure; two weeks ago we announced a partnership with Google around Kubernetes (Open Source container platform); and we obviously have a relationship with IBM.

"Those are the top four clouds in market share, so you'll see, increasingly, VMware relevant to all the cloud providers - those top clouds and 4,400 more on other service providers."

At VMworld Europe, VMware announced a rebranding of its vCloud Air Network, following the sale of vCloud Air earlier this year.

The VMware Cloud Provider Programme has launched with five partners - CenturyLink, Fujitsu, IBM, OVH and Rackspace - and seven services: Discovery, Cost Insight, Wavefront, Network Insight, NSX Cloud, AppDefense; and Workspace ONE.

CEO Pat Gelsinger added that VMware customers and partners should expect to hear more announcements on VMware's relationship with AWS over the coming months.

"Moving a workload into Amazon - that's just the start," he said.

"We're going to find a way to integrate their services into our offerings over time, so we really see this as just the beginning of an exciting journey with the public cloud partners in a powerful way, and overall it will be a multi-cloud future that we're uniquely enabling you to participate in.

"We laid out our strategy about a year ago for the multi-cloud, hybrid cloud world, where we can really deliver this idea of consistent infrastructure - where customers can really have that seamless ability to go to the cloud, as well as back from the cloud, and be able to take advantage of the Amazon infrastructure in this seamless way."