The News: As the Cloud Native community gathered in Amsterdam at CloudNativeCon, VMware took the opportunity to announce details of the company’s push into Cross-Cloud Managed Services. See the full details from VMware’s announcement.
VMware Doubles Down on Cross-Cloud Services
Analyst Take: All of the news right now about VMware is focused on the impending Broadcom acquisition as this mega-acquisition is slated to come to a close in the next few months. However, and beyond that, it is good to see VMware continue to focus on its core business and look to further drive innovation in a space that it has dominated over the course of the last decade plus.
VMware operates in a congested market with some of the top competitors to VMware in the cloud management tooling market including Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, HashiCorp, HPE, and ServiceNow, along with a plethora of smaller players.
What did VMware Launch?
This last week at CloudNativeCon in Amsterdam, VMware announced the launch of a new set of managed services, called VMware Cross-Cloud Services. These new services are aimed at helping businesses manage and secure their applications across multiple cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and IBM Cloud. The goal is to allow companies to move workloads from one cloud provider to another easily while maintaining security and compliance — something that is in high demand today.
With this new set of managed services, VMware is trying to help companies simplify their multi-cloud environments and make it easier for them to manage their applications across different clouds. This is a critical need for many businesses, as they continue to adopt cloud technologies to improve their operations, while also dealing with the complexity of managing multiple clouds.
One of the key features of VMware Cross-Cloud Services is the ability to manage and secure applications across different cloud providers using a single management console. This makes it easier for businesses to monitor and manage their applications across different clouds, without having to switch between different management tools or platforms.
Another important feature of VMware Cross-Cloud Services is its ability to provide consistent security policies across different cloud providers. This is critical for businesses that need to maintain regulatory compliance, as they can ensure that their security policies are applied consistently across different clouds.
VMware Cross-Cloud Services also provides a range of other features, including the ability to automate application deployment and management, monitor and optimize application performance, and provide detailed analytics and reporting on application usage and performance. One of these features is the ability to automate application deployment and management. This means that customers can easily deploy and manage their applications across multiple cloud environments without having to manually configure and manage each environment. Another feature is the ability to monitor and optimize application performance. This means that customers can track the performance of their applications in real-time and make adjustments as needed to ensure optimal performance, which will both help improve the user experience as well as reduce downtime.
VMware Cross-Cloud Services also provides detailed analytics and reporting on application usage and performance, providing customers with insights into how their applications are being used and how they are performing. This is key, as this allows organizations to use this information to make data-driven decisions about application development and management.
Go-to-Market Strategy for VMware Cross-Cloud Services
VMware’s go-to-market strategy around the launch of its Cross-Cloud managed services will without question increase VMware’s ability to offer managed services solutions to customers. These services are becoming more common and are a reaction to growing customer demand for external providers to step in and help ease their skills shortages by delivering a range of IT services.
VMware will offer a number of verified service offerings that target a range of customer needs. These will be delivered by partners and supported by the vendor’s go-to-market, sales, and support motions. The options include Cross-Cloud managed services for hybrid cloud, native public cloud, and modern apps, all of which are hot topics in the industry right now as enterprises look to grapple with the challenges presented by the need to cut costs and manage multiple cloud instances.
VMware has adroitly made it attractive for MSPs and partners to sign up for their verified service offerings, as they will have access to a range of benefits and have the opportunity to earn the VMware Cross-Cloud managed services badge, which will show they are authorized to sell the verified offers. This will be attractive, as badged partners can potentially earn up to 40% more rewards for providing assessments and proof of concepts, and up to 100% more than non-badged partners for deployment services. I believe that in what is a congested reseller and MSP space, these rewards will provide a strong affinity for VMware from a vendor that many organizations already have a long association with.
Looking Ahead for VMware
The launch of VMware Cross-Cloud Services is an important development for businesses that are looking to move their applications and workloads to the cloud and multiple clouds. By providing a set of managed services that can help simplify the management and security of multi-cloud environments, VMware is helping businesses to leverage the benefits of cloud computing without having to deal with the complexity of managing multiple clouds.
Moreover, VMware Cross-Cloud Services will enable companies to move their workloads and applications from one cloud provider to another as needed — which is much in demand in today’s hybrid multi-cloud world. This flexibility is essential for businesses that need to respond quickly to changing business needs, while also ensuring that their applications and workloads remain secure and compliant.
Overall, the launch of VMware Cross-Cloud Services is a significant development for businesses that are looking to take advantage of the benefits of multi-cloud environments. By providing a set of managed services that can help simplify the management and security of multi-cloud environments, VMware is helping businesses to leverage the benefits of cloud computing without having to deal with the complexity of managing multiple clouds.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Regarded as a luminary at the intersection of technology and business transformation, Steven Dickens is the Vice President and Practice Leader for Hybrid Cloud, Infrastructure, and Operations at The Futurum Group. With a distinguished track record as a Forbes contributor and a ranking among the Top 10 Analysts by ARInsights, Steven's unique vantage point enables him to chart the nexus between emergent technologies and disruptive innovation, offering unparalleled insights for global enterprises.
Steven's expertise spans a broad spectrum of technologies that drive modern enterprises. Notable among these are open source, hybrid cloud, mission-critical infrastructure, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and FinTech innovation. His work is foundational in aligning the strategic imperatives of C-suite executives with the practical needs of end users and technology practitioners, serving as a catalyst for optimizing the return on technology investments.
Over the years, Steven has been an integral part of industry behemoths including Broadcom, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and IBM. His exceptional ability to pioneer multi-hundred-million-dollar products and to lead global sales teams with revenues in the same echelon has consistently demonstrated his capability for high-impact leadership.
Steven serves as a thought leader in various technology consortiums. He was a founding board member and former Chairperson of the Open Mainframe Project, under the aegis of the Linux Foundation. His role as a Board Advisor continues to shape the advocacy for open source implementations of mainframe technologies.
