VMware has launched the locally hosted VCloud Air for Australian customers.
The service, now in general availability for local customers, helps address some of final hurdles in moving them to the the Cloud.
This initial VMware vCloud Air deployment in Australia is hosted out of a Telstra connected datacentre, which addresses local compliance and data locality concerns.
It is built on VMware vSphere and offers two distinct infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) compute offerings - Dedicated Cloud and Virtual Private Cloud.
It is designed to offer hybrid Cloud solutions, whether a customer wants to extend an on-premise datacentre to create a hybrid Cloud environment or start a new public Cloud deployment.
VMware vice president and managing director A/NZ, Duncan Bennet, told ARN vCloud Air offered the same opportunity for the channel that on-premises software had for years.
"It's a Cloud play working with the existing VMware community - a community that has made us very successful," he said.
"Australian businesses will have the ability to seamlessly extend applications into the Cloud without any additional configuration, and will have peace of mind, knowing this IT infrastructure will provide a level of reliability and business continuity comparable to in-house IT.
He said it meant businesses could quickly respond to changing business conditions, to scale IT up and down as required without disruption to the overall business.
"You can easily go from Cloud, to on-premises and back again," he said. "If you are a VMware customer the value proposition is very clear."
Bennet said multinationals who had already taken up vCloud Air in the US and Europe, where it has been deployed for about a year, were showing a lot of interest in the Australian launch.
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VMware vCloud Air integrates with current IT infrastructures to make it easy to extend existing applications and integrate them with new transformational Cloud-native applications.
vCloud Air offers virtual private, dedicated and disaster recovery that works with the applications businesses run today, offering greater agility and availability on a secure foundation of VMware vSphere.
IT departments can view, manage and operate this Cloud environment using the VMware vSphere platform that they already know, and it is compatible with Hybrid Cloud Powered Services provided by the VMware vCloud Air Network of service providers.
The new VMware vCloud Air location in Australia will enable customers the ability to have their data stored under Australian compliance and data protection regulations.
Partners will play a key role integrating private datacentres and public Clouds and delivering hybrid solutions to customers.
VMware vCloud Air was designed specifically with the partner community in mind. VMware distributors, solution providers and OEM partners sell vCloud Air the same way as any other VMware product.
vCloud Air partners include Datacom, Data#3, Macquarie Telecom, Deloitte and Telstra.
Ingram Micro and Avnet will distribute vCloud Air in Australia, while Ingram Micro and Westcon will disbtribute the service in New Zealand.
Datacom director of Cloud and enterprise tools, Rob Purdy, said his company was extremely excited to offer and integrate hybrid solutions for vCloud Air as a VMware certifed datacentre partner.
"We see this as a natural step forward for our long-time relationship with VMware, one which makes the leap to hybrid Cloud simpler and easier than ever before for our customers."
Deloitte Consulting technology partner, Kevin Russo, said the partnership allowed Deloitte to help client through Cloud enabled business transformation, including the provision of SAP solution as a service.
"Our new vCloud Air enabled offerings will faclitate us to deliver true Cloud solutions that are directly aligned to business outcomes."
Rackspace general manager and director A/NZ, Angus Dorney, said many of his customers had already benefited strongly from hybrid Cloud platforms making use of VMware technology.
"We see vCloud Air's local availability as a momentous step forward for our nine-year partnership witwh VMware and hybrid Cloud adoption in Australian and the Asia Pacific region," he said.
"The agility, compatibility, and automation it could bring to the hybrid Cloud will greatly benefit our VMware certified professionals as they help drive business transformation for everyone from start up to major multinationals."
Telstra will host and resell vCloud Air in Australia.
Telstra CIO and executive director of Cloud, Erez Yarkoni, said Telstra VMware customers could easily extend or move their on-premise IT infrastructure to a public Cloud.
"With the VMware vCloud Air Australian region deployed in Telstra’s datacentre and integrated into Telstra’s Next IP network, customers have the benefit of secure, high-speed connectivity for their hybrid computing environments.
Yarkoni said there was no 'one size fits all' approach.
"That’s why we keep adding to our Cloud portfolio – to provide customers with the best range of Cloud services from world-leading technology providers," he said.
"In 2015 we’ve already shown great momentum in our Cloud strategy, just last week announcing that Australian customers now have access to IBM SoftLayer."
Telstra also sells Cisco Cloud Services, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
VMware general executive vice president and general manager, Cloud service business unit, Bill Fathers, said the company continued to see growing client adoption and interest.
"VMware's new Australia service location enables local IT teams, developers and lines of business to create and build their hybrid Cloud environments on an agile and resilient IT platform that supports rapid innovation and business transformation."
