IBM, VMware Partner on Hybrid Cloud Channel Offering

IBM will provide VMware-based cloud services to channel partners to boost their hybrid cloud offerings, the company announced Tuesday. IBM Business Partners will now be able to sell VMware Cloud Foundation and help clients extend existing VMware environments to the IBM Cloud.

The new integrated services allow IBM partners to provide a “one-stop shop” for migration of on-premise VMware platforms to the cloud. IBM says its VMware-based fully automated service for VMware Cloud Foundation is a market first.

“Enterprises need fast and easy ways to deploy and move workloads between private and public cloud environments,” said Zane Adam, VP of IBM Cloud. “By being the first to market with channel partners and VMware, IBM is enabling organizations to scale and create new business opportunities while making the most of their existing IT investments in a hybrid cloud environment.”

Clients and partners can automatically provision pre-configured VMware software-defined data center (SDDC) environments. The platform provides infrastructure flexibility by integrating VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and SDDC Manager.

“IBM and VMware share a common goal of empowering organizations to quickly and easily extend their workloads to the cloud,” said Ajay Patel, senior vice president, Cloud Provider Software, VMware. “Through the IBM and VMware strategic partnership, customers can easily move and implement enterprise applications and disaster recovery solutions across a global network of cloud data centers.”

The announcement further builds on the strategic partnership announced by the companies a year ago to ease enterprise adoption of hybrid environments, and VMware Cloud Foundation, which the company introduced in August to sell a single platform cloud stack as a subscription service supported by IBM cloud.

VMware also partnered with Amazon to sell its data center automation software on the AWS cloud to enterprises in October. VMware has been shifting steadily toward a role of providing connections and management for multi-cloud environments, and CEO Pat Gelsinger discussed the impact of changing infrastructure technology on channel partners with the WHIR in June.