Satya Nadella (Microsoft); Michael Dell (Dell Technologies) and Pat Gelsinger (VMware)
Dell Technologies and Microsoft have unveiled an expanded in-market partnership with VMware acting as an anchor point across cloud and digital technologies.
Central to such collaboration will be the delivery of a fully native, supported and certified VMware cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure.
Additionally, joint Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers will be able to manage Office 365 across devices via cloud-based integration with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory.
Unveiled during the opening day of Dell Technologies World 2019 in Las Vegas, VMware will also extend the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop leveraging VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.
“At Microsoft, we’re focused on empowering customers in their digital transformation journey, through partnerships that enable them to take advantage of the Microsoft cloud, using the technologies they already have,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
“Together with Dell Technologies and VMware, we are providing our mutual customers with an integrated cloud experience and digital workplace solutions to open up new opportunities and meet their evolving needs.”
Specifically, Azure VMware Solutions are built on VMware Cloud Foundation, an offering spanning software-defined compute, storage, networking and management - deployed in Azure.
Through such solutions, customers can leverage VMware’s cloud infrastructure, backed up by Microsoft Azure.
“Customers are excited to see us expand our collaboration with Microsoft,” added Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware. “These innovative cloud and client offerings will deliver customers even more value, provide more flexibility to accelerate their hybrid multi-cloud and multi-device journey, and accelerate the digital transformation of their business.”
According to Gelsinger, Azure VMware Solutions allow customers to “migrate, extend and run” existing VMware workloads from on-premises environments to Azure without the need to re-architect applications or retool operations.
Delving deeper, customers will also be able to "build, run, manage, and secure" new and existing applications across VMware environments and Microsoft Azure while extending a single model for operations based on established tools, skills and processes as part of a hybrid cloud strategy.
Gelsinger said some of the more popular customer scenarios Azure VMware Solutions will support centre around app migration and data centre expansion, disaster recovery and business continuity and modern application development.
“With this announcement Dell Technologies and Microsoft are working to simplify our customers’ entire technology environment,” said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. “Our goal is to provide a single view from edge to core to cloud - an integrated platform for our customers’ digital future.”
Dell said Azure VMware Solutions enable organisations to tap into Azure’s "scale, security and fast provisioning cycles" to innovate and modernise applications while also improving performance.
By integrating with native Azure services, customers can also combine capabilities such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things into their applications.
Azure VMware Solutions will operate as first-party services from Microsoft developed in collaboration with VMware Cloud Verified partners CloudSimple and Virtustream, a Dell Technologies company.
The expanded alliance will also result in mutual Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers leveraging Workspace ONE to “manage and secure” the productivity features of Office 365 across devices via cloud-based integration with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory.
Through the new Dell Technologies Unified Workspace offerings, customers can tap into the integration of Microsoft Windows Autopilot and Dell Device Provisioning and Deployment Services, like Dell ProDeploy, which is enabled through the integration of Microsoft 365, Workspace ONE, and Dell Provisioning Services.
James Henderson travelled to Dell Technologies World as a guest of Dell Technologies.
