Dive Brief:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VMware are extending their partnership to develop data center software for enterprises whose data exists on-premise and in the cloud, according to Investopedia.
- AWS and VMware formed a partnership in October 2016 to allow preexisting VMware customers to have a hybrid relationship with AWS. The partnership allowed businesses to maintain private, on-premise cloud storage with VMware while extending some storage to AWS's public cloud.
- This will be Amazon's first major attempt at creating enterprise-sized data center software. The deal is in response to the expansion of public cloud use, but reluctance of major enterprises to relinquish their on-premise, private providers.
Dive Insight:
AWS is currently the top public cloud provider with Microsoft and Google closely trailing. However, following VMware's cloud partnership with IBM in August 2016, Amazon was not far behind partnering with VMware too. Because VMware is so widely used by enterprises, these partnerships enable companies that run VMware software to seamlessly transfer data to other cloud providers without having to change existing applications.
VMware pursued the common struggle among enterprises that needed a cloud provider that could fulfill all workload requirements. As VMware has an established enterprise base, AWS will benefit with an extending base while VMware won't face losing any existing customers.
Amazon already has cloud support services, but creating a software with VMware would "make it easier for enterprises to move on-premise apps to the cloud and recover data from Amazon in case of disasters," according to Investopedia. As 60% of IT spending is expected to go towards on-premise IT and private clouds, collaborations like this are expected with other top public cloud providers.
