OVH is to acquire vCloud Air, VMware’s hybrid cloud offering based on the software-driven data center.
The reason behind VMware letting go of its vCloud Air unit is one of strategy – the Dell Technologies subsidiary cited its evolving business strategy, specifically its focus on providing hybrid and cross-cloud software and services. Given this evolution, the company has made the decision to transition its vCloud Air U.S. and European data centers, customer operations, and customer success teams to OVH.
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Long-time VMware partner OVH will operate the service as vCloud Air Powered by OVH and continue to service customers as they embrace a hybrid cloud environment. Ties are not being cut with VMware, with OVH set to continue to leverage VMware’s hybrid cloud technology, in addition to closely partnering with VMware on go-to-market and customer support around the three proven vCloud Air use cases: data center extension, data center consolidation, and data center recovery.
Describing the deal with OVH as the “next step in vCloud Air’s evolution”, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said:
“We have enjoyed a long and successful partnership with OVH and view this acquisition as an extension of our partnership and a positive for our customers and partners. Customers will have access to OVH’s global footprint, high-touch customer support, and still retain the VMware SDDC technology innovation that they are accustomed to.”
“We remain committed to delivering our broader Cross-Cloud Architecture that extends our hybrid cloud strategy, enabling customers to run, manage, connect, and secure their applications across clouds and devices in a common operating environment.”
OVH, one of the largest cloud service providers in the world, has been a long-time VMware vCloud Air Network partner with more than 200,000 VMs from thousands of customers running VMware vSphere Private Cloud. The company’s global data centers across four continents hopes to offer vCloud Air customers choice, while the company’s thousands of miles of dark fiber and 32 points of presence worldwide provides fast performance and workload mobility.
“Through our strategic relationship with VMware, which includes joint R&D and best-in-class delivery of solutions, OVH leads the private cloud market in Europe,” said Octave Klaba, chairman and CEO, OVH.
“With this acquisition, OVH will offer a very unique value proposition for larger enterprise deployments, including rich capabilities for migration and advanced hybrid functionalities for virtual data centers. This will benefit all our clients across the globe.”
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in calendar Q2 2017.
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