Amazon Web Services and VMware expanded their hybrid-cloud partnership Monday, announcing that AWS will ship a new version of its cloud-based database-management software that was designed for VMware-managed data centers.
AWS CEO Andy Jassy announced the new service, called Amazon RDS for VMware, on stage at VMworld Monday alongside VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. AWS customers running multiple databases on its public cloud can use an existing product, Amazon RDS, to manage all the annoying maintenance tasks associated with running large-scale databases, and VMware customers will now be able to use a version of that inside their own data centers.
It’s another step in the growing partnership between AWS and VMware, two companies that were anything but friends in the early days of cloud computing. But several years ago, both companies came to the understanding that while cloud computing is the way forward for modern technology infrastructure, on-premises data centers weren’t going to disappear as fast as it once might have seemed.
That partnership started with VMware Cloud for AWS, which is now available around the world a year after it was formally launched, and has expanded to include areas in which the companies are essentially courting the same customer: someone who for whatever reason wants or needs to run their own data centers, but also wants to put workloads in the cloud where it makes the most sense. Microsoft and Google are also rolling out products and services for this type of customer, but the AWS-VMware partnership is a formidable pairing, combining the cloud market leader with the company nearly synonymous with server virtualization software.
“The offering that we have together, VMware Cloud on AWS, is very appealing to customers, because it allows them to use the same software they’ve been using to manage their infrastructure for years, to be able to deploy it in AWS,” Jassy said on stage in Las Vegas. He said the number of customers that are using that particular hybrid product is doubling every quarter, but Gelsinger told analysts during VMware’s earnings call last week that he doesn’t expect to see a substantial amount of revenue related to the product until next year.
Amazon RDS for VMware will allow customers to manage databases including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB. It’s expected to become available in the “coming months,” the companies said, perhaps foreshadowing an announcement at AWS re:Invent in late November.
