More than 500 new clients, including Marriott International are now running VMware software on IBM Cloud since the strategic cloud partnership was announced;Introduction of VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud helps move existing apps to the cloud within hours; More than 4,000 IBM service professionals trained to help organizations extend their VMware environments to IBM Cloud
LAS VEGAS –Aug. 29, 2016 - Today at VMworld® 2016, VMware (NYSE: VMW) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced the availability of industry-first cloud services that enable organizations to quickly and easily move enterprise workloads to the cloud. With more than 500 clients engaged, the global partnership between IBM and VMware is helping more organizations extend existing workloads to the cloud in hours, versus weeks or months.
Earlier this year, IBM and VMware set out to tackle one of the industry's most pressing challenges: extending existing VMware workloads from on-premises environments to the cloud without incurring the cost and risk associated with retooling operations, re-architecting applications and re-designing security policies.
Rapid Enterprise Adoption of VMware Environments on the IBM Cloud
Since then, more than 500 mutual clients have begun moving their VMware environments to IBM Cloud including Marriott International, Clarient Global LLC and Monitise. IBM is a strategic cloud platform for VMware users with a growing footprint of nearly 50 highly-scalable and security-rich cloud data centers across the globe. With almost 100 percent of the Fortune 100 customers using VMware technologies, the partnership is designed to preserve and extend customer investments across thousands of data centers.
“Enterprises need fast and easy ways to deploy and move workloads between on-premises and public cloud environments,” said Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president, IBM Cloud. “Our collaboration with VMware is becoming the glue for many organizations to scale and create new business opportunities while making the most of their existing IT investments in a hybrid cloud environment.”
IBM Provides First Offering For VMware Cloud Foundation as a Fully Automated Service
Today’s introduction of VMware Cloud Foundation™ combines VMware’s market-leading compute, storage and network virtualization solutions into an integrated platform. For the first time, organizations can now automatically provision pre-configured VMware Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) environments on IBM Cloud in hours versus weeks or months. The platform integrates VMware vSphere®, VMware Virtual SAN™, VMware NSX® and VMware SDDC Manager™, and gives customers broad choice in their infrastructure decisions.
In addition to new services, IBM is training more than 4,000 service professionals with the expertise required to provide clients with VMware solutions. This expansive team of sellers and advisers will provide clients with the expertise to extend VMware environments to the cloud.
“IBM and VMware share a common vision for providing customers with an easy path from the data center to the cloud,” said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. “This collaboration has been so successful that we’re investing more deeply so our customers can quickly deploy software-defined solutions in just hours to IBM Cloud with all the sophisticated workload automation they have within their own data centers.”
Marriott Enhances Customer Service Experiences via the Cloud
Marriott International is a globally recognized hospitality company, reporting more than 4,500 properties in 88 countries and territories. The company is constantly looking for ways to innovate and transform the guest experience. By extending their VMware investments on IBM Cloud, without the need to re-architect applications, development teams have the ability to focus on innovation and preserve their existing IT investments.
“It’s more than just keeping our guests happy, it’s about helping them create a memory by exceeding their expectations,” said Alan Rosa, senior vice president of Technology Delivery and IT Security, Marriott International. “From reserving and booking rooms, planning their next family vacation or facilitating an important business event, the process of consuming our services and products needs to be seamless and integrated into our guest’s style of working and transacting. Marriott has been able to keep innovating by rapidly launching new customizable applications that support these experiences. The partnership between IBM and VMware gives us an advantage in that Marriott can continue to do what we do best but expands our reach on a global scale with trusted partners whom consistently deliver.”
Analyst Perspective
“IBM and VMware are making great strides to enable enterprise hybrid cloud adoption through automation,” Melanie Posey, vice president of Research, IDC’s Hosting and Managed Network Services. “The IBM – VMware partnership offers enterprises the ability to extend existing on-premises workloads to the cloud seamlessly without the need for a major IT operations overhaul, thus greatly simplifying the entire migration process.”
Additional Resources
- Read a perspective by VMware Vice President of Global Service Provider Channel Geoff Waters, “What VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud Means for Companies Globally.”
- Also announced today at VMworld, VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture builds on its leading private and hybrid cloud capabilities by offering customers the freedom to innovate in multiple clouds, and is delivered through VMware Cloud Foundation™ and a new set of cross-cloud services, which VMware is developing. Learn more about the announcement.
- Follow VMware on Facebook and Twitter.
About IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud delivers fast, easy and automated access to public, private and hybrid cloud services that enable companies to lower their overall IT costs while increasing agility and productivity. IBM offers a complete portfolio of cloud services supporting a wide range of applications including big data, analytics, mobile and cognitive computing. For more information please visit www.ibm.com/cloud or @ibmcloud.
About VMware
VMware is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility. Built on VMware's industry-leading virtualization technology, our solutions deliver a brave new model of IT that is fluid, instant and more secure. Customers can innovate faster by rapidly developing, automatically delivering and more safely consuming any application. With 2015 revenues of $6.6 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.
VMware, Cloud Foundation, vSphere, Virtual SAN, and NSX are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the VMware Cloud Foundation and extended IBM-VMware strategic partnership, including the resulting services and solutions, interoperability with other VMware offerings and potential benefits to customers. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation and the entry of new competitors into industries in which we compete; (iii) VMware's customers' acceptance of and ability to transition to new products and computing strategies and emerging technologies; (iv) VMware’s ability to enter into and maintain strategically effective partnerships; (v) rapid technological changes in the industries in which we compete; (vi) changes to product and services development timelines; (vii) VMware’s ability to protect its proprietary technology; (viii) the ability of VMware to realize synergies following Dell’s acquisition of EMC; (viv) VMware's relationship with EMC Corporation and EMC's ability to control matters requiring stockholder approval, and any changes that Dell may implement following the completion of the Dell-EMC merger, as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including VMware's most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and are based on current expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and do not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
Press Contacts:
Faye Abloeser
IBM
908-770-0762
abloeser@us.ibm.com
Alex Goldsmith
VMware
310-963-9869
agoldsmith@vmware.com