Hybrid Cloud Service Apologies from VMware

An apology has been released by VMware in light of recent delays in getting users set up on the company's Hybrid Cloud Evaluation, which is basically a "test drive" for its public cloud infrastructure operating in an anonymous partner's data center.

VMware's vCloud Team said: "We'd like to apologize to our users for exceeding the target provisioning time for new accounts. For those who are ready to give it a try, we are making room for you."

Last month, VMware began its free trial of the Hybrid Cloud Evaluation, and sources noted that the following error message appeared after signing up: "We were unable to log you in: Your vCloud service has not completed provisioning. If you recently signed up for service please wait at least 15 minutes for this to complete."

Although a target time was not given for provisioning the service, some would-be users of VMware's services were still unable to log in after several days. The company noted that the huge influx of sign-ups were responsible for the delay, and the vCloud team said: "To meet that demand we are adding more capacity to get you up and running."

It remains uncertain whether the apology issued by VMware is for itself, or behalf of its partner. Some of the virtual machines users create with the Hybrid Cloud Evaluation are hosted at Sterling, Virginia-based Virtacore Systems, a service provider.

VMware also did not clarify what it means by "adding more capacity," particularly as its HybrodiCloud Evaluation is not running on its own infrastructure, but instead, on a vCloud service provider.

The Hybrid Cloud Evaluation is different to VMware's Cloud Hybrid Service, which is a production-grade public cloud IaaS offering that is being released later in the year along with an as-yet unstated stable of service provider partners and the EMC parent company.

The problems which VMware is having does not reflect well on the company, regardless of whose infrastructure the service is being run on. The founder and CTO of Tier 3, a Seattle-based service provider, Jared Wray, said: "Our buyers would not consider a solution where these fundamental capabilities don't exist - after all, agility is what is attractive about the cloud in the first place."

The company stated that its private cloud management, orchestration, networking and security model will be able to assist in making the public cloud a less scary place for enterprises. However, if VMware wants to deter customers from utilizing Amazon Web Services, it will have to focus on the basics of operating an IaaS service and choose partners that will be able to deliver it. (CY) Link