Microsoft unveils preview of its Azure VMware Solution
Microsoft has today announced the preview of the 'next generation' of Azure VMware Solution, which enables customers to migrate existing on-premises VMware applications to Azure without re-architecting the applications.
Microsoft initially announced its collaboration with VMware for the solution in April 2019, which allows VMware workloads to run on Azure natively.
The new Azure VMware Solution is a first-party service from Microsoft, and the tech giant says that this aspect of the solution means users can have both direct access to Azure innovation and a single point of contact.
"The new Azure VMware Solution gives customers the ability to use the same VMware foundation in Azure as they use in their private data centers," says VMware chief operating officer Sanjay Poonen.
"It provides a consistent operating model that can increase business agility and resiliency, reduces costs, and enable a native developer experience for all types of applications.
The new solution is built on Azure, with users able to provision a VMware Cloud Foundation environment on Azure and gain compute and storage elasticity.
The new Azure VMware Solution also has an option to add VMware HCX Enterprise, letting customers simplify their migration efforts to Azure.
The integration between Azure and VMware allows customers to use the native VMware tools and management experiences they are familiar with, and incrementally leverage Azure capabilities as required.
"As we look to meet customers where they are today, we are deeply investing in support for hybrid management scenarios, and automation that can streamline the journey," says Microsoft commercial chief marketing officer Takeshi Numoto.
"We are excited to announce more about future hybrid capabilities as they relate to Azure VMware Solution, soon.
Microsoft says the Azure Hybrid Benefit extends to Azure VMware Solution, allowing customers with software assurance to maximise the value of existing on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server license investments when migrating or extending to Azure.
"This is an amazing milestone for Microsoft and VMware to meet our customers where they are today on their cloud journey," says Microsoft executive vice president Jason Zander.
"Azure VMware Solution is a great example of how we design Azure services to support a broad range of customer workloads.
"Through close collaboration with the VMware team, I'm excited that customers running VMware on-premises will be able to benefit from Azure's highly reliable infrastructure sooner.
The Azure VMware Solution preview is initially available in US East and West Europe Azure regions, with general availability expected in the second half of 2020.
