VMware to Speed Move to Hybrid Cloud with New vCloud Products

At its annual VMworld conference in Las Vegas, VMware announced new and updated
products designed to help companies looking to move to hybrid cloud environments that will bring channel partners opportunities to build attached services revenue.

The
products announced include a new feature of the vCloud
Datacenter Program called Global Connect, vCloud Connector v1.5, Disaster Recovery to the Cloud with
vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5, and a new online portal where customers can
get more information and try out vCloud-based cloud services.

“VMware is focused on helping to drive business transformation for companies that
are taking the journey to the cloud, and the announcements today are really
focused on new enhancements that help to accelerate that journey for
customers,” said Joe Andrews, director of cloud services at VMware.

Global
Connect is a new feature of the vCloud Datacenter Program that follows on the
vCloud Datacenter Services portfolio first introduced at
VMworld in August 2010. As an optional feature for vCloud Datacenter, Global Connect
simplifies the use of multiple cloud service providers, enabling customers to
use various cloud services from multiple providers across geographies as if
they were a single, virtual cloud.

“This
is the ability to deliver a consistent service globally to a customer through a
single contract on the front-end, but delivered underneath by multiple service
providers,” Andrews said.

VMware
is enabling service providers to work together to establish business
relationships and customer contracts so they can transfer customers between
them for different services. From the customer point of view, it’s one contract
that supports multiple cloud providers and multiple geographies. What VMware is
providing is the underlying technology to make this happen, Andrews said.

The
updated vCloud Connector v1.5 beta improves some of the key areas on the
software that was first announced in February 2011. Improvements are focused
around speed, reliability and increased flexibility. With the updated vCloud
Connector, customers will get faster and more reliable data transfer that
reduces the time to transfer workloads. It’s currently available as a client
that plugs into vSphere, but VMware is also introducing web access integrated
with its new customer portal. The beta version is available now, with general availability planned for Q4 2011.

The
new customer portal was developed to serve as a gateway to
the cloud for enterprise customers. According to Andrews, while there is plenty of
customer demand for vCloud services, it’s been difficult for customers to
find partners offering such services. The new portal simplifies that and also makes it possible for customers to test out services.

Initially,
four service providers are signed up,
but Andrews said he expects that number to grow over time.

The
final product announcement from VMware, Disaster Recovery to the Cloud with
vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5, takes the previously announced vCenter Site
Recovery Manager 5 and layers partners’ disaster recovery services on top.
FusionStorm, Hosting.com, iland and VeriStor are the first four VMware partners
to offer disaster recovery services on the platform.

“It
takes advantage of the new capabilities in VMware Site Recovery Manager 5,
which introduces vSphere replication and enables customers with a more seamless
experience and lower cost of doing backup and disaster recovery,” Andrews said.

All
of the enhanced products and services provide new opportunities for channel partners to help
their customers move to hybrid cloud operating environments. Andrews noted that
a lot of VMware’s licensing sales have a lot of potential for services revenue,
and VMware partners that have adopted a services model tend to find they
generate revenue of 11 to 15 times the dollar value of the product on services.

“There
will be an emerging opportunity for channel partners to serve as consultants or
in an advisory role for their customers to figure out the best strategy for
this journey to the cloud,” Andrews said.