Equinix and VMware have announced an expanded global relationship to deliver new digital infrastructure and multi-cloud services.
Together, the companies unveiled VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal, a new distributed cloud service that they say will deliver a more performant, secure, and cost-effective cloud option to support enterprise applications. The service will combine VMware-managed and supported cloud infrastructure as a Service with Equinix’s interconnected, global Bare Metal as a Service offering. The service will extend customers’ cloud environments into distributed metro locations to satisfy business-critical performance demands at the edge while enabling them to preserve the integrity of enterprise workloads.
“Customers to date have lacked a suitable cloud option that combines on-premises security and control with high performance, data locality, and low overall TCO,” said Dave McCarthy, research vice-president, cloud and edge infrastructure services, at IDC. “For mission-critical applications that rely on low latency and high-performance network bandwidth, the default has been to retain workloads on-premises or perform real-time needs, such as data processing, at branch office or metro locations. With their combined strengths, Equinix and VMware are well positioned to deliver a distributed cloud service that will address the demands of enterprise applications where latency, performance, security, and data locality are key drivers.”
VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal is said to be ideal for distributed cloud use cases, including smart cities, video analytics, game development, real-time financial market trading, retail POS, and a variety of use cases using IoT and ML/Inference. The service will include VMware Cloud for consistent multicloud infrastructure and operations and Equinix Metal, an automated bare metal and interconnection offering delivered as a service across Equinix’s global International Business Exchange (IBX) footprint. VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal aims to provide private, low-latency access to both private and public cloud environments—as well as thousands of IT and network providers—via Equinix Fabric interconnection. This built-in private connectivity should also be capable of delivering multicloud flexibility and choice with instantaneous connectivity to all public cloud services.
“As companies accelerate their digital transformation by adopting hybrid multicloud architectures, they require consistent application experiences that span private and public clouds, and reach from the core to the edge,” said Zachary Smith, Global Head of Edge Infrastructure Services at Equinix. “We are pleased to partner with VMware to provide an on-demand, dedicated cloud infrastructure solution that can be deployed globally. Customers benefit from secure connections to their critical private or on-prem environments and also to the thousands of clouds, networks and other ecosystem participants that come together at Equinix.”
“Businesses across industries are seeking to become cloud smart by matching enterprise application needs to the best cloud environments. This approach will enable them to benefit from high performance and consistent infrastructure with low TCO,” said Narayan Bharadwaj, Vice President, Cloud Solutions at VMware. “VMware and Equinix are uniquely positioned to co-innovate on a distributed cloud service that extends VMware Cloud to new locations to provide application choice and flexibility and accelerate cloud transformation for all enterprises.”
