VMworld Europe: IBM Extends Partnership With VMware

At VMworld Europe 2019, IBM Corp. announced an extended partnership with VMware, Inc. to accelerate hybrid cloud innovation and adoption across global enterprises.

Through new and updated technology offerings, IBM is making it easier for enterprises of all sizes to more securely move VMware workloads to the cloud and leverage open technologies to modernize their business operations.

Enterprises are at a critical juncture in their cloud journey as they begin to modernize their most mission-critical workloads in search of greater speed and flexibility. With data often spread across disparate computing environments, clients are embracing a hybrid strategy in which they’re enabling applications to share data across clouds and on premises environments. To date, the two companies have helped nearly 2,000 enterprises on their hybrid cloud journeys, with clients such as American Airlines, Fujifilm, Veritas, Universidad Europea adopting the common solutions. Clients who turn to IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions can access secured, enterprise-grade features like the highest certified level of key management encryption, and an established ecosystem of third-party services for backup, security, and more. ⁽ⁱ⁾

As businesses look to optimize everything from supply chains to core banking systems, the two partners help speed enterprise hybrid cloud adoption through a suite of solutions that accelerate the migration of critical VMware workloads to IBM’s public cloud in a secured, open environment:

• IBM announced plans to release a beta in December 2019 of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Shared, offering enterprises of all sizes more options for hybrid cloud adoption. A multi-tenant solution on IBM’s public cloud using VMware vCloud Director, it will be offered as an alternative to IBM’s single-tenant solution that provides a clent-managed environment with full contol for the user. IBM Cloud for VMware solutions Shared can give enterprises of all sizes a flexible, managed environment where they can directly provision their VMs on-demand to address the needs of diverse set of projects and businesses. This will free clients from manually installing and managing updates to their virtual infrastructure or managing multiple third-party vendors, instead allowing them to focus on driving innovation. The new solution will be made available through IBM partners or directly to end users so that enterprises can utilize firm’s public cloud with flexibility.

• IBM is enabling the automated deployment of Red Hat OpenShift directly on top of a client’s VMware Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) environments in IBM’s public cloud as a self-managed solution. This is designed to provide customers with an on-ramp for migrating their mission-critical workloads to the cloud by leveraging their existing VMware footprint. Beginning in December, customers will be able to deploy Kubernetes within this environment in order to modernize existing VMware applications or build new applications on containers alongside their VMs, all while maintaining the same level of network control and security policies.

• IBM and HCL Technologies Ltd. are also collaborating to help clients migrate and modernize VMware workloads on IBM’s public cloud. By onboarding its customers to IBM’s public cloud, HCL will be able to help them modernize their business-critical workloads. At the same time, clients can maintain their cloud with high certified levels of security, as well as HA, to help them with their compliance with data governance obligations. HCL will also work with the company to transform and modernize VMware applications with Kubernetes and containers leveraging Red Hat OpenShift on IBM’s public cloud.

• IBM Cloud for VMware Mission Critical Workloads and Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services with HyTrust Data Control integration are available, enabling clients to manage and replicate data across regions to aid them in their data compliance responsibilities. The firm’s Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services and HyTrust Data Control integration offers the of protection for data encryption keys.

“Today’s news highlights the continued momentum we’re driving through our longstanding partnership with VMware and our shared vision to help clients adopt hybrid cloud strategies that can truly modernize their operations,” said Harish Grama, GM, IBM Public Cloud. “Enterprises are selecting IBM’s public cloud as the best destination to migrate their VM workloads and drive the innovation that will transform their businesses.“

“Cloud is no longer a destination but rather an operating model about which VMware and IBM have a deep understanding,” said Ajay Patel, SVP and GM, cloud provider software business unit, VMware. “We have helped thousands of large global enterprise customers migrate tens of thousands of mission-critical workloads to the cloud and operate them at scale. Once in the IBM Cloud, these customers can transform applications in ways not possible by simply running them on-prem, taking advantage of a rich set of cloud-native services for application development, AI/ML, ML and IoT.“

Adoption of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions continues to grow as enterprises embrace hybrid cloud strategies to help them modernize their operations. For instance, Veritas Technologies LLC and Universidad Europea have turned to the company’s public cloud and VMware to help migrate their mission-critical workloads to the cloud:

• Veritas leveraged VMware tools to migrate their mission-critical workloads from on-premises IT infrastructure to IBM’s public cloud. It chose to work with the company  because it offered flexibility and control with its bare metal server offering and had a large global presence with a network backbone that allowed free data transfer between data centers. With the company’s public cloud, it was able to migrate with minimal downtime, and adopt a hybrid cloud strategy for modernizing their mission-critical workloads including their customer portal, website, and other backend IT systems.

• Universidad Europea is adopting a hybrid cloud strategy for the next phase of its cloud journey by migrating its IT infrastructure to the company’s public cloud. By adopting IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions, it will be able to upgrade and expand its virtual campus, its Universidad Europea Online and transform its offerings to address the current demands of digitally savvy students. For example, the university will be able to manage enrollment fluctuations for online courses, offer digital applications to engage the student learning experience and accelerate time to market for new programs and training initiatives.

⁽ⁱ⁾ Encryption keys and cryptographic operations are protected with highest level certified HSM – with Hyper Protect Cryto services: FIPS 140-2 Level

Resources:
Blog: Hybrid Cloud Transformation with IBM Cloud and Vmware     
Blog: IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions Shared: A New Managed Public Cloud Solution for VMware on IBM Cloud