Reported that VMware intends to bring its virtualization software into Microsoft Azure Cloud
VMware, a virtualization software company, is considering an alliance with Microsoft, one of its biggest competitors, which may have some positive effects on its joint customers.
The two companies have been competitors for many years, providing competitive services to help customers who want to migrate critical workloads to the cloud manage private data centers.
However, one problem users complain about is that it is always difficult for them to run VMware's virtualization software on Microsoft Azure cloud (allowing different operating systems and multiple applications to run on the same physical computer). This is a big problem because it limits the choice of VMware customers, many of whom want to use hybrid cloud infrastructure to give them more choices where to deploy applications.
Now, this situation is about to change. As reported by The Information today, the two companies are exploring a cooperation agreement similar to that signed by VMware and AWS in 2016. The result of this agreement is a new service called VMware Cloud on AWS, which enables enterprises to easily run VMware software on Amazon cloud and use AWS cloud.
The Information said, VMware and Microsoft are developing software that allows enterprises to easily migrate VMware applications to the Azure cloud. Although it is feasible to run VMware virtualization server in Azure, it requires a lot of technical work. Any cooperation between VMware and Microsoft should make this easier.
The cooperation between the two sides is undoubtedly the result of customer demand. The Information said in the report: "VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger told CNBC last June that his customers asked for compatibility between VMware software and Azure and Google Cloud."
Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, said that customers clearly expressed their hope that VMware software could cooperate with all leading cloud infrastructure as a service operators.
Mueller said, "VMware believes that it has found a viable long-term strategy to provide hybrid cloud control planes and other cloud based services. Customers hope to have multiple choices, VMware hopes to replicate its cooperation with AWS, Microsoft and perhaps Google. "
