VMware goes ‘cross-cloud’

At VMworld 2021 today, VMware announced a “cloud-smart” strategy to help customers navigate the multi-cloud era, with the launch of VMware Cross-Cloud services.

This group of integrated services, it says, will help deliver a faster and smarter path to cloud for digital businesses, providing customers with the ability to build, run and better secure apps across any cloud, with freedom and flexibility.

Today, the average organisation is running roughly 500 applications to drive their business, and those apps are distributed across clouds. VMware says 75% of its customers are relying on two or more public clouds, and 40% are using three or more. This multi-cloud approach increases app velocity and innovation and allows organisations to be much more agile and resilient.

However, a multi-cloud environment is far more diverse, complex, and distributed than anything organisations have managed in the past. This complexity often forces trade-offs between moving fast and managing risk, resulting in slower execution while increasing costs. VMware’s strategy is built to help customers eliminate the tough choices and challenges by giving them a powerful combination of freedom and control in their multi-cloud business.

“Multi-cloud is the digital business model for the next 20 years, as entire industries reinvent themselves,” says Raghu Raghuram, CEO of VMware. “It’s no longer about a ‘cloud-first’ approach – it’s about being ‘cloud-smart’. Organisations should have the freedom to choose the ’right’ cloud, based on their strategic business goals. With our cloud-agnostic approach, we are uniquely positioned to meet our customers where they are and take them where they want to go. We give every organisation the power to accelerate their innovation and control their own destiny in the multi-cloud era.”

Richard Villars, group vice president, IDC, says: “During the past year, organisations fully embraced digital transformation as they were forced to respond to many dramatic changes, accelerating their innovation timelines at record paces.

“Organisations rely heavily on cloud technologies to evolve and scale as they pivot to competing in a digital-first economy. VMware’s multi-cloud-focused strategy puts it in a strong position to help enterprises take full advantage of multiple clouds and their resources in their own data centres to improve resiliency and the trusted use of technology for delivery of better experiences and business outcomes.”

VMware Cross-Cloud Services for All Apps

To help customers navigate the multi-cloud era, VMware Cross-Cloud services will deliver three key advantages: an accelerated journey to the cloud, cost efficiency, flexibility and control across any cloud. VMware Cross-Cloud services expands the capabilities of VMware’s product portfolio for a multi-cloud world and will allow customers to pick and choose the services needed on the desired cloud to meet evolving business demands. VMware Cross-Cloud services is comprised of five core building blocks:

• A state-of-the-art platform for building and deploying cloud-native apps;
• Cloud infrastructure for operating and running enterprise apps;
• Cloud management for monitoring and managing the performance and cost of apps across different clouds;
• Security and networking that spans across entire multi-cloud operations to connect and better secure all apps; and,
• A digital workspace to empower the distributed workforce along with edge solutions to deploy and manage edge-native apps.

At VMworld 2021, VMware is also announcing a variety of new innovations that span VMware Cross-Cloud services, including:

• Cloud Infrastructure and Management: Unveiling new multi-cloud innovations to help customers move to the cloud faster and more safely, accelerate app modernisation, and adopt a cloud operating model.
• Apps: Introducing advancements in the VMware Tanzu portfolio to provide developers with the autonomy to build and deploy apps on any cloud.
• Edge: Introducing VMware Edge, a product portfolio that will enable customers to run and manage edge-native apps across multiple clouds, anywhere.
• Security and Networking: Announcing new security innovations to deliver end-to-end Zero Trust architecture inside and across cloud and app environments.

Customers Accelerate Multi-Cloud Journeys with VMware

LIXIL Group, a Japanese manufacturer of water and housing products, says: “Over the past year, a digital business model has enabled us to not only meet evolving customer needs but to also remain resilient amid disruption,” said Osamu Iwasaki, SVP, leader of system development & operation, LIXIL. “Our digital infrastructure is built on a multi-cloud strategy, and VMware provides the ability and support across clouds to innovate quickly and efficiently.”

SGB-SMIT group, a leading manufacturer of transformers for data centers in Europe, says: “A multi-cloud environment is the basis of our virtual company. We are regularly introducing new cloud-based apps to disconnect from the old way of working,” said Salvatore Cassara, chief information officer, SGB-SMIT Group. “To do this, we need the flexibility to scale quickly and move workloads between cloud providers without restrictions. VMware brings together our different cloud elements and really allows us to reinvent how we collaborate, and ultimately enable innovation throughout the company.”

Western Union, a world leader in cross-border business payments, says: “Over the past year, we have focused on innovating to truly rally around our customers and deliver the best experience,” said Sada Iyer, head of infrastructure, Western Union. “Like many financial organisations, part of our technology modernisation journey is moving to the cloud. With VMware, we have the flexible multi-cloud model required for the digital age as we look to accelerate innovation across our global platform.”

VMware Strategy and Innovations Designed to Fuel Growth for Partners in Services and Cloud
VMware announced several new partner program innovations aligned to its customer first, partner-led strategy, including VMware Cloud Universal enabled for reseller partners, and VMware Success 360, which allows partners with master services competencies (MSCs) to, for the first time, offer their own customer success services for all the stages of the customer journey with VMware solutions. In addition, new and refreshed VMware Customer Lifecycle Incentives are designed to fuel partner growth in services and cloud.