At the end of February 2019, the site The Information publishes a groundbreaking news: the solution of cloud Microsoft Azure allies with the virtualization specialist VMware. With a revenue estimated at $11 billion in 2018, Microsoft Azure is well below its competitor Amazon Web Service (AWS) with its $25.65 billion. Could this new alliance be a response to the competition, which already uses VMware's solution? What is the interest for VMware in this partnership? A look at a somewhat surprising collaboration...

The success of the multicloud

The partnership between Microsoft and VMware is not happening now without reason. This collaboration responds to a new trend among CIOs who now store their data on different types of cloud and no longer on a single cloud . This is what is known as the multicloud.

L'study of RightScale survey on cloud shows that 84% of companies with more than 1,000 employees have a multi-cloud strategy. Of these, 56% use hybrid clouds, 17% use public clouds and 9% use private clouds.

The lexicon of cloud

1. The cloud public: is a cloud created by a service provider and accessible to any subscribed company. Although several organizations use the same service, the data of each structure remains confidential. AWS and Azure are public clouds, as is Google's cloud or Oracle's. The cloud public cloud has a big advantage of scalability, it adapts very quickly to the multiplication of data. When a company requires more storage space, it gets it quickly. Pricing is based on the amount of space used.
2. The cloud private or "cloud proprietary": is a cloud developed by a company for strictly internal use. Access is decentralized, but users must belong to the company to access the data. Very secure, the private cloud allows the customer to improve data governance. Pricing is linked to the cost of resources (data center, server...).
3. The cloud hybrid: combines cloud public and cloud private via integration or orchestration. It consists partly of an on-premises IS extended to a public cloud . Typically, the public cloud is used to increase the efficiency of workloads. The private cloud is ideal for sensitive data or workloads.
4. Multicloud: brings together two private cloud environments and two public cloud environments on which an enterprise operates. They are managed centrally. Multicloud and hybrid cloud are not mutually exclusive; they are increasingly used together.

In this highly competitive environment, the winner will be the one who establishes itself the fastest. To achieve this, clouds demand an unprecedented level of service and possibilities .

Microsoft and VMware Partner

In this shifting environment, the Dell subsidiary and cloud Azure are teaming up to extend the capabilities of running VMware user-developed applications in cloud Azure and dedicated instances.

Led by Ray Blanchard, a former VMware employee turned Microsoft employee, the project is following a natural path. In 2017, Microsoft had already developed a migration solution for VMware customers (without its approval), but the operation was too technical. With this partnership, migrations will be made easier and VMware customers will be back in a familiar environment.

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The interests of each party

In a market as competitive as virtualization, such an alliance is inevitably beneficial to both parties. So it's not surprising that the two companies have moved beyond their rivalry in this area to come up with a joint offering.

For Microsoft, it's also a matter of fighting against AWS, the predominant player in the market, by gaining market share. Finally, it will also allow Microsoft to plan for the end of Windows 2008 support in 2020 by taking advantage of VMware's solutions for migration.

On its side, by joining forces with Microsoft, VMware hopes to develop a real partnership with the latter, whereas AWS today presents itself more as a competitor, as explained below.

For Microsoft, fighting AWS

Since Amazon has partly taken off with VMware Cloud on AWS, its service offered by VMware, it is urgent for Microsoft to have the same asset.

For the record, this same offer was proposed by VMware and rejected by Microsoft a few years ago. However, the success of Amazon has influenced Bill Gates' company.

For VMware, getting out of a stranglehold

While Amazon is leveraging VMware Cloud, Dell's subsidiary is taking advantage of AWS infrastructure to move into the cloud hybrid solution. As a result, enterprise VMware infrastructure administrators use their vCenter and provision the infrastructure on AWS.

This once synergistically profitable configuration now represents a threat in the form of competition for VMware. It is therefore in the company's best interest to diversify its alliances to distance itself from the e-commerce giant.

For both, meeting a demand

Beyond the AWS vs. Microsoft and VMware battle, the new partners have two common interests:

  • Respond to requests from VMware customers to export their solution to Microsoft's cloud .
  • Attract current VMware users to Azure.

This alliance between competitors is far from new. With the deployment of the multicloud, competing providers are joining forces to meet the demand for cloud solutions. The last question is about the limits of the partnership since it seems that it does not stop there ... To be continued!

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