PALO ALTO – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), today announced new innovations that will enable VMware Cloud Provider partners to capture the transition to multi-cloud and deliver new and differentiated services to their customers. These latest innovations to the VMware Cloud Provider Platform will help partners deliver a modern VMware-based software-defined data center that is purpose-built for partners and will enable them to expand their multi-cloud managed services portfolio by integrating additional VMware cloud offerings.

To expand their multi-cloud managed services portfolio, the new VMware Cloud Provider Hub will offer a centralized portal for partners to purchase, provision, and manage VMware Cloud infrastructure and operations services offerings for multi-cloud. The Cloud Provider Hub will allow partners to expand their VMware Cloud infrastructure footprint with VMware Cloud on AWS and offer consistent multi-cloud operations with VMware Cloud Services. For partners running a VMware environment today, the new VMware Cloud Provider Pod, VMware vCloud Director 9.5, VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR, and VMware vCloud Usage Insight will enable cloud standardization with single click automated deployment, simplified management, and reporting, enabling VMware partners to quickly differentiate and monetize their VMware-based clouds.

“VMware Cloud Provider Partners are trusted advisors for customers in their cloud journey,” said Rajeev Bhardwaj, vice president of product management, cloud provider software business unit, VMware. “With these new innovations, VMware will enable our partners to capture the opportunity for multi-cloud and create new managed services inclusive of non-VMware based clouds. By adopting these new solutions, VMware Cloud Provider Partners will be able to address the complexity of multi-cloud management and extend their relationship with their enterprise customers beyond providing only VMware-based cloud infrastructure.”

“Service provider partners are emerging as the most important link between enterprises and their desired cloud infrastructure vendors,” said Carl Brooks, analyst, Service Providers, Managed Services and Hosting, 451 Research. “They provide the expertise, work and experience necessary to move at the pace today’s market demands. For vendors, enabling partners to make more money incents them to sell more software; it’s becoming a vital route to market for cloud platforms to as broad a base as possible.”

Capturing Multi-Cloud Managed Services Opportunities with Cloud Provider Hub

Cloud Provider Hub will deliver two key sets of capabilities: end-to-end customer lifecycle management for VMware XaaS offerings and managed services expansion. First, with end-to-end customer lifecycle management, VMware partners will own the terms of services and own the direct customer relationship including managing access to VMware XaaS offerings, metering and billing, and customer support. They will remain the trusted advisor and first point of contact as customers begin to use and add new multi-cloud infrastructure and operations services. Second, partners will be able to use an asset-light model to integrate new VMware offerings into their own managed services portfolio. VMware will be offering VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud Services through the Cloud Provider Hub.

VMware Cloud on AWS enables partners to complement their own existing managed SDDC offerings or create a net-new VMware managed SDDC offering using an asset-light model to provide customers with a hybrid cloud service ideal for cloud migration, data center extension, disaster recovery, regional expansion, or application modernization use cases. VMware Cloud Services help partners manage, protect, and operate both VMware-based clouds and native public clouds such as AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Today, VMware is offering VMware Log Intelligence for monitoring and incident response management service for VMware Cloud on AWS, vSphere, vCloud Director, and AWS deployments.

Automating VMware Cloud Provider Data Centers with Cloud Provider Pod

The new VMware Cloud Provider Pod will enable partners to stand up a VMware-based software-defined, multi-tenant datacenter based on a partner’s cloud design, in just a few clicks. The Cloud Provider Pod will accelerate a provider’s time-to-value by automating the design and deployment of a fully tested and validated VMware stack including VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX, vCloud Director, along with complete operations visibility, cloud management, metering and chargeback, in adherence with VMware Validated Design guidelines. Cloud Provider Pod will enable cloud providers to standardize their SDDC stack. This standardization allows cloud providers to deliver consistent VMware infrastructure and operations to their customers. With Cloud Provider Pod, VMware cloud providers will be able to accelerate their path to VMware Cloud Verified designation.

Improving Operational Efficiency and Security while Accelerating Cloud Migration

The VMware Cloud Provider Platform enables partners to meet their critical business imperatives: drive operational efficiency, quickly monetize new services, and compete more effectively. VMware is further enhancing the Cloud Provider Platform with:

• VMware vCloud Director 9.5: VMware vCloud Director is the cloud management platform for VMware Cloud Providers, enabling Cloud Providers to deliver differentiated and value-added cloud services on their VMware Cloud Infrastructure. VMware vCloud Director 9.5 introduces enhanced cross-site networking powered by deeper integration with NSX, fine grained role governance, and significant improvements to the UI. VMware is continuing to open the vCloud Director capabilities to developers with ongoing investment in PythonSDK as well as a new Terraform Provider. Demonstrating third-party extensibility, VMware announces vCloud Director Data Protection from Dell EMC. This will provide a full-featured data protection solution natively integrated into vCloud Director, eliminating the need for tenants to use multiple portals to manage their virtual data centers and offering a simple, easy-to-use and unified customer experience.
• VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR: VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR will provide Disaster Recovery protection and migration capabilities for cloud providers running vCloud Director. VMware vCloud Availability Cloud-to-Cloud DR will help cloud providers monetize their infrastructure, drive more breadth in their portfolios by offering additional managed or self-service disaster recovery and contingency planning services between cloud instances on a tiered basis and drive professional service opportunities. Enterprise customers will gain the ability to manage or configure a disaster recovery solution from within their portal, completely integrated to their workloads and applications without the need for agents or multi-screen hopping.
• VMware vCloud Usage Insight Service: VMware vCloud Usage Meter will help partners manage and report on usage of the various offerings within the Cloud Provider Platform. With the latest version of vCloud Usage Meter 3.6.1, cloud providers are entitled to vCloud Usage Insight, a SaaS tool that provides automated usage reporting, simple onboarding, more secure data transfer, and aggregation of usage across all contracts and sites.
• New VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension Partners: VMware continues to add to its roster of partners offering bulk cloud migration services using VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension, which enables partners to migrate thousands of VMs at an accelerated rate without requiring reboot. Hybrid Cloud Extension is now offered by Fujitsu, IBM Cloud, IBM GTS, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions, Mediapro Cloud, NTT Com, OVHcloud and United Compute and Management.

Commentary from VMware Partners

Today, more than 4,000 partners in 120+ countries are delivering services based on VMware cloud infrastructure. VMware Cloud Verified partners are a set of strategic partners offering complete VMware SDDC as a service with value-added services and support. VMware has 16 VMware Cloud Verified partners offering compatible services featuring consistent VMware Cloud infrastructure from over 80 data center locations in 32 countries.

“Faction’s core business has been offering VMware-virtualized environments, and we are rapidly expanding into multi-cloud managed services, with a strong emphasis on VMware Cloud on AWS,” said John Drake, vice president of strategic alliances, Faction. “We see tremendous opportunity in the power of marrying familiar VMware Cloud infrastructure with back-end AWS infrastructure and services, and the ability to spin up a complete SDDC environment on bare-metal servers in 75 minutes is groundbreaking. Public cloud is breathing new life into the VMware side of the house at Faction, and the new Cloud Provider Hub will make creating and delivering multi-cloud managed services that much easier.”

“As a long-standing global technology partner, OVHcloud was one of the first to realize the benefits of VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension. Our customers that require massive data migrations with little or zero downtime can now experience a fast, more secure and simple way to accelerate their migrations.  This helps us to deliver enterprise scale hybrid cloud solutions that meet the demands and speed of business today,” said Russell P. Reeder, CEO of OVH US. “Combining Hybrid Cloud Extension with OVHcloud infrastructure and network capabilities has contributed to our success as a leader in VMware cloud migrations.”

“Businesses of all sizes are under pressure to deliver superior customer experiences based on agile IT by making a major shift into a combination of managed private and public clouds. But moving existing applications, delivering new applications and features, and optimizing operations in the cloud can be complex,” said Peter FitzGibbon, vice president and general manager of the VMware practice at Rackspace. “Rackspace is partnering with VMware to help our mutual customers navigate the challenges and maximize the value of implementing a multi-cloud strategy delivered as a service. VMware continues to deliver new innovations that enable us to combine new and differentiated managed cloud offerings with our Fanatical Experience and deliver strategic flexibility, optimal economics and easier migration to our customers.”

“TierPoint is a leading provider of secure, connected data center and cloud solutions at the edge of the Internet. We rely on automation and orchestration to ensure consistency and rapid deployment of all our services,” said Terry Morrison, senior vice president and chief technology officer, TierPoint. “We’re proud to be an early tester of VMware Cloud Provider Pod, an exciting and innovative next step in bridging automation and enhancing ease of use for clients. By working with VMware to test and move forward new technology, we can offer our 5,000 clients the best connectivity, performance and reliability available in the industry.”

[toggle title =”About VMware“] VMware software powers the world’s most complex digital infrastructure. The company’s compute, cloud, mobility, networking and security offerings provide a dynamic and efficient digital foundation to over 500,000 customers globally, aided by an ecosystem of 75,000 partners. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, this year VMware celebrates twenty years of breakthrough innovation benefiting business and society. For more information please visit https://www.vmware.com/company.html.

VMware, VMware Cloud, VMware Cloud Provider, Cloud Provider Hub, Cloud Provider Pod, vCloud, vCloud Director, vCloud Availability, vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR, vCloud Usage Insight, Log Intelligence, vSphere, vSAN, NSX, VMware Validated Design, vCloud Usage Meter, Hybrid Cloud Extension, and VMworld are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company. This article may contain hyperlinks to non-VMware websites that are created and maintained by third parties who are solely responsible for the content on such websites.[/toggle]