VMware cloud infrastructure is coming to Azure in hybrid cloud play

VMware, a Dell subsidiary, is partnering with Microsoft to bring VMware cloud infrastructure to Azure, the firms have announced

The announcement, made at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, means VMware customers can extend their on-premises environments to Azure data centres and brings VMware capabilities natively to Azure customers.

Customers will be able to build, run, manage, and secure new and existing applications across VMware environments and Microsoft Azure while extending a single model for operations, the companies said.

In a press release, the companies said they predict app migration, data centre expansion, disaster recovery, and modern application development to be the most popular customer scenarios.

The announcement comes two years after VMware announced a similar partnership with AWS that integrated VMware environments with VMware in AWS.

Hybrid push

Despite embracing cloud platforms, most enterprises insist on keeping certain workloads (for instance sensitive customer data) on their data centres. Rather than persuade firms to migrate everything over to the cloud, the major cloud providers are trying to integrate their platforms with on-premises environments. VMware claims its software runs in 500,000 customers’ data centres, so today’s new partnership makes complete sense.

No availability date was announced for the new integration, although it took a year after VMware’s AWS integration announcement for VMware cloud to become available in one AWS region.

The companies also announced planned integrations between Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE, Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory, and VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.

“With this announcement Dell Technologies and Microsoft are working to simplify our customers’ entire technology environment,” says Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. “Our goal is to provide a single view from edge to core to cloud – an integrated platform for our customers’ digital future.”