IBM and VMware pen hybrid cloud deal

IBM and VMware have formed a partnership to enable enterprises to extend existing workloads from on-premise software-defined data centres to the cloud.

The deal was announced at IBM’s annual customer event in Las Vegas this week.

With almost all Fortune 100 customers supposedly utilising VMware technologies, it is hoped the partnership will help preserve and extend customer investments across thousands of data centres. Customers will be able to leverage VMware’s proven technologies with IBM’s growing footprint of 45 cloud data centres worldwide, helping companies scale globally while avoiding retooling expenses, development risks and reducing security concerns.

IBM and VMware have jointly designed an architecture and cloud offering that could enable customers to automatically provision pre-configured VMware SDDC environments, consisting of VMware vSphere, NSX and Virtual SAN on the IBM Cloud.

With this SDDC environment in place, customers will be able to deploy workloads in a hybrid cloud environment without modification, due to common security and networking models based on VMware.

IBM will make use of its CloudBuilder tools and workload automation capabilities to automatically provision pre-configured or custom workloads to the cloud, validated by VMware’s design patterns for software defined data centre architectures.

Along with this, VMware has extended vRealize Automation and vCenter management tools to deploy and manage environments on the IBM Cloud, as if they are part of a customer’s local data centre.

“This partnership, an extension of our 14-year plus relationship with IBM, demonstrates a shared vision that will help enterprise customers more quickly and easily embrace the hybrid cloud,” said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware.

“Our customers will be able to efficiently and securely deploy their proven software-defined solutions with sophisticated workload automation to take advantage of the flexibility and cost effectiveness of IBM Cloud.”

Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president, IBM Cloud, said: “We are reaching a tipping point for cloud as the platform on which the vast majority of business will happen.

“The strategic partnership between IBM and VMware will enable clients to easily embrace the cloud while preserving their existing investments and creating new business opportunities.”

The two companies plan to jointly market and sell new offerings for hybrid cloud deployments, including workload migrations, disaster recovery, capacity expansion and data centre consolidation.