Dell Technologies World 2019: With the aim to offer a seamless experience across different platforms, Dell Technologies said it is expanding its partnership with Microsoft that will allow the common customers to use 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. 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, 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.”
“With this announcement, Dell Technologies and Microsoft are working to simplify our customers' entire technology environment,” says 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.”
“Customers are excited to see us expand our collaboration with Microsoft,” said Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware. “These innovative clouds 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.”
VMware Experience on Microsoft Azure
Azure VMware Solutions are built on VMware Cloud Foundation – a comprehensive offering of software-defined compute, storage, networking and management – deployed in Azure.
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.
The company said that customers will 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.
Some of the more popular customer scenarios Azure VMware Solutions will support are app migration and data center expansion, disaster recovery and business continuity and modern application development, said VMware.
By integrating with native Azure services, customers can use advanced capabilities like AI, Machine Learning, and IoT into their applications enabling new, intelligent experiences.
Azure VMware Solutions are first-party services from Microsoft developed in collaboration with VMware Cloud Verified partners CloudSimple and Virtustream.
“The partnership being announced today between Microsoft, Dell and VMware in Cloud and Client innovations will allow them to better bring their best solutions to customers like us. We look forward to continuing to work with Microsoft, Dell and VMware to accelerate our digital transformation,” said Clay Johnson, executive vice president and enterprise chief information officer, Walmart.
Digital workspace strategy
With this agreement, mutual Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers will be able to use 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.
As a part of this agreement, VMware will extend the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop to enable customers to further accelerate their cloud initiatives, leveraging VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure. Initial capabilities are expected to be available as a tech preview by the end of the calendar year 2019.
Microsoft and VMware are also exploring initiatives to drive integration between VMware infrastructure and Azure such as integration of VMware NSX with Azure Networking and integration of specific Azure services with VMware management solutions. They will also be exploring bringing specific Azure services to the VMware on-premises customers, said the company.
