AWS unveils its on premise strategy; sort of

LAS VEGAS – AWS calls it the “The Hybrid Choice” and it will bring the cloud giant closer to delivering an on premise offering than ever before.

The Hybrid Choice comes on the back of brand new strategic partnership with VMware. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger even joined AWS CEO Andy Jassy on stage at the Re: Invent conference to signify the importance of this direction for AWS.

For VMware, it is announcing a new offering called VMware Cloud that will be on the AWS cloud. But there is more to the strategic alliance for customers. Expect to see a full software-defined data centre offering from this partnership. The VMware Cloud on AWS will enable apps across the vSphere platform for hybrid cloud scenarios that will go through channel partners with expertise in offering on-demand solutions through an elastic scalable service. This deal will also give VMware users the ability to stick with existing VMware software providing some kind of investment protection.

Part of the strategy behind the alliance is that most vSphere private cloud environments are already on the AWS cloud. This partnership will provide a path for them to run existing on premise solutions alongside AWS on VMware platforms.

“Most of the time the same software is being used to manage on premise and the AWS footprint. This is a unique way to use the same license. It makes a ton of sense and almost all enterprises have already virtualized on VMware,” Jassy said.

Gelsinger provided several customer examples from Amadeus (a travel and ticketing agency), McDonald’s, the State of Louisiana and Liberty Mutual that are in this situation. “We can now bring all of these customer into a single offering and give them an on premise/cloud experience that is scalable and on top of that there are AWS services,” he said.

Currently four channel partners have signed up for this offering; made up mostly of global integrators such as Accenture, Cap Gemini and Deliotte, but Gelsinger added there is opportunity for more channel involvement and he sees solution providers building practices around this kind of business transformation.

“We expect more partners signing on,” Gelsinger said.

Eric Gales
Eric Gales

One executive with intimate knowledge of both AWS and VMware is Eric Gales. Gales is the GM of AWS Canada, but he was previously at VMware Canada in the same role. He told CDN that he was excited when he learned of the strategic alliance. “There is already a high usage in Canada of virtualization with VMware. I look forward to working with VMware to take advantage of the new opportunities through channel partners and bring the message out together. This allows customers to get an easier look at the hybrid model and leverage existing investments.”

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Paolo Del Nibletto
Paolo Del Nibletto
Former editor of Computer Dealer News, covering Canada's IT channel community.

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