Dell’s VMware, Microsoft Azure join forces for cloud solutions

Dell Technologies and Microsoft have expanded their partnership by providing a native VMware cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure.

Dell owns a majority stake in software virtualisation firm VMware. Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.

“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 Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Nadella also said that the Dell and VMware collaboration would give mutual customers an integrated cloud experience with digital workplace solutions that would help meet evolving needs. Microsoft and Dell's VMware had struck a similar partnership where Amazon Web Services (AWS) users were given access to VMware software.

The companies said in a statement that there would be a collaboration between software suite Microsoft 365 and integrated digital workspace platform VMware Workspace One.

Through this collaboration, customers will be able to manage Office 365 on multiple devices through cloud-based integrations with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory.

The Azure Active Directory is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management service, while Intune is the company’s cloud-based service in the enterprise mobility management segment that also acts as a security layer for devices.

VMware also announced that it would extend the capabilities of the Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop using the VMware Horizon Cloud platform on Microsoft Azure.  

“Our goal is to provide a single view from edge to core to cloud – an integrated platform for our customers’ digital future,” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies.

VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said that customers were excited to see the enhanced collaboration with Microsoft.

“These innovative cloud 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,” said Gelsinger.

The companies also reiterated that the Azure-VMware solutions were built on the VMware Cloud Foundation that helped with better compute, storage, networking and management. Built based on agile methodologies, the solutions would be able to migrate and run on existing on-premise environments without any requirement for re-architecting or retooling operations, they added.

The partnership would also enable customers to deploy advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and Internet of Things for their applications.

Microsoft and VMware are further exploring initiatives for more integration between VMware infrastructure and Azure, a few of which could be VMware NSX with Azure Networking and integration of specific Azure services with VMware management solutions.