vCloud Hybrid Impacts Microsoft More Than Amazon

According to some solution providers, Microsoft and its technologies will be affected more by VMware's hybrid cloud play than Amazon, which is arguably the biggest cloud player in the industry.

VMware's vCloud Hybrid Service was launched last month; it is an Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering which uses its vSphere technology as a framework. The vCloud Hybrid Service allows VMware customers to broaden the reach of its virtualized data centers both to on-premise and off-premise cloud environments, as well as speedily distribute applications to the cloud with no changes.

Partners of VMware state that vCloud Hybrid will have a bigger effect on Microsoft, which is also transitioning into the virtualization-cloud synergy front with its Hyper-V and Windows Azure software.

iCorps is a Boston, Massachusetts-based Microsoft Gold partner solution provider and VMware enterprise partner. The director of technology at that company, Jeff Lauria, commented on vCloud Hybrid being a response to Microsoft, stating: "VMware brought virtualization to where it is today, but Microsoft was on their heels [with Hyper-V and Azure]. So what do they do? They go with IaaS and look at leveraging the public cloud in a private manner."

Azure and Hyper-V have made such a big difference for Microsoft that rivals of the company cannot ignore this. Last week, Oracle announced its alliance with Microsoft to certify and support its software products for Microsoft's cloud and virtualization platforms.

The director of business development at solution provider IT Weapons in Toronto, Jeremy MacBean, stated that the vCloud Hybrid is the logical response from VMware. He said: "I think this will help VMware chip away at Microsoft. We've started to see some VMware clients move to Hyper-V for Microsoft's cloud, but I think vCloud Hybrid will start to change that."

Amazon partners stated that the company occupies a different end of the cloud spectrum. MacBean stated: "VMware is offering something that Amazon is nowhere near, which is more than just bulk cloud computing and cloud storage."

VeriStor is a solution provider based in Duluth, Georgia. The chief technology officer at the company, Steve Bishop, noted that businesses will benefit most from VMware's hybrid model which meets the demand for private cloud distributions for much of their IT operations.

Bishop said: "I don't get the sense that VMware is swinging at Amazon with vCloud Hybrid. They have two different models. Moving to AWS involves a lot of application re-architecture, whereas VMware is more focused on getting existing infrastructure running on its software into the cloud.

There will also be some overlap, added Bishop, especially in businesses which are looking to strengthen Amazon's service for delivering applications but want to utilize hybrid services like vCloud Hybrid to promote key parts of their infrastructure.

Furthermore, partners note that vCloud Hybrid will ensure that VMware customers are kept in-house rather that move to rival offerings. MacBean said: "Given VMware's customer huge base in the enterprise, I think they're poised to do very well. They own a huge chunk of the virtualization market, so this will definitely slow the growth of the competition."

MacBean does not think that VMware, in the near future, will choose to move downstream into public cloud services if vCloud is successful, and therefore will not compete with Amazon Google and others. He said: "That's not where VMware has been successful. But conventional wisdom says it's easier to go downmarket than upmarket, so I wouldn't rule it out." (CY) Link