As we move into 2019, we thought we’d share a recap of some of the key announcements which support our strategic IT priorities.
These core pillars define our approach to the support we give our customers. At VMware we are focused on supporting their digital transformation, from infrastructure through delivery and security to the end-user experience. In this post, we’re looking at integrating public cloud and you can also read our other posts on modernising the data center, empowering the digital workspace and transforming security.
Cloud is everywhere. The barriers that held up adoption are slowly coming down as enterprise organisations wake up to the potential of deploying a variety of environments to support their transformation. According to Gartner, the public cloud services market alone is projected to grow 17.3 percent in 2019 to total $206.2 billion, up from $175.8 billion in 2018.
Seamless experience across all environments
For VMware, cloud is the only way any organisation, whether private, public or third sector, is going to be able to scale and extend their operations in a competitive, agile and cost-effective manner. We recognise that there is no silver bullet – as Louise Ostrom, vice president for Cloud in EMEA at VMware, said earlier in the year, providers are only going to become more specialised, not less so. Add this to the nature of trying to digitise a global enterprise, and the result is a complex mix of private and public clouds and on-premises, with applications that need to share data across all these environments. That’s why it’s important our customers have the means to enjoy a consistent, seamless experience across all their platforms.
Roll outs and expansions to reach new audiences
It’s also why our focus continues to be on integrating public cloud. To that end, our continued relationship with Amazon Web Services, in the expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS, is critical to supporting customers having the right environments to suit their needs. Throughout the year we have evolved the proposition – first with our roll out of the service to the AWS London region in March. This was swiftly followed, in time with its first birthday, with further expansion to Sydney, and enhanced capabilities, all launched at VMworld 2018 US.
As if that wasn’t enough, we finished the year with a final flourish – bringing more regions in Europe and the US on to the service, as well as additional security features.
This almost continual stream of news is testament to the appetite amongst partners and customers for VMware Cloud on AWS. At the end of the day, we’re a business – if the market isn’t there for a product, we wouldn’t have kept expanding it and offering it to a wider audience. The fact is, less than 18 months after it was first launched, we’re continually seeing new customers using it to give them access to the leading public cloud on the market, in a way that connects with their private and on-premises environments.
Companies like Stagecoach, which wanted to move away from the ownership and management of hardware to create a more flexible digital foundation. It did that by migrating some of its most business-critical applications to VMware Cloud on AWS, allowing the Stagecoach IT team to focus on creating new value for the business.
Then there’s Trend Micro, which is complementing its existing VMware vSphere-based private cloud, with VMware Cloud on AWS. This allows it to easily and quickly migrate workloads to its public cloud with on-demand expansion and no impact to application uptime.
A truly hybrid cloud
It’s isn’t all just VMware Cloud on AWS, however. At VMworld 2018 Europe, we talked about the growth of our partnership with IBM, brought to life with new offerings to accelerate enterprise hybrid cloud adoption. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger summed it up when he said: “With the latest advancements in our relationship, we’re making it possible for customers to move, modernise, and operate any application – VM or containerized, traditional or mission-critical – in the IBM Cloud.”
Managing costs effectively
Working with partners is a fantastic way of expanding our ecosystem for the benefit of customers. Another way to add new services, capabilities and expertise is through M&A. Back in October, we completed the acquisition of CloudHealth Technologies, giving our customers access to a cloud operations platform that analyses and manages cloud cost, usage, security and performance centrally for native public clouds.
It’s been quite the year in integrating the public cloud – and 2019 promises to be even better than that, with further expansion of VMware Cloud on AWS and other great partnerships on the horizon.
To find out more about the path to seamless adoption of hybrid cloud, check out this handy guide.
