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Dell Technologies and Microsoft Expand Partnership to Help Customers Accelerate Their Digital Transformation

New Azure VMware Solutions bring customers more choice and flexibility
Microsoft and VMware collaborate on digital workspace offerings and future cloud integrations.

The announcements came thick and fast at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas today. Michael Dell seemed pretty excited about his Microsoft announcements, so much so, he invited Satya Nadella on stage to help him!

The long term strategy for Dell is playing out; The main news of the morning was the Dell Cloud Platform built on VMware Cloud foundation and Dell EMC hardware to enable on-premises cloud experience, with a single point of management of your VMware clouds whether they are on-premises or in a public hosted cloud.

Dell boasted 4,200 cloud providers running VMware-based clouds, but everyone knows that perhaps there is only a handful that really matters. Dell already has VMware on AWS, so the big missing link in the chain was Azure. Well, that is no more. VMware on Azure is now a reality.

In terms of the strategy, it’s great. With the launch of Dell Cloud Platform, the promise is to provide a consistent single manageable interface across on-premises and public clouds. The caveat, of course, is that the cloud is built on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), but with AWS and Azure in the bag, the story is looking very good.

At DTA, we wondered if this spirit of openness was reciprocal and asked Michael Dell in the press conference that follows whether we can expect to see Azure Stack (or even OpenStack) running on the on-premises Dell Cloud Platform. Michael sidestepped that question, and we didn’t get an answer.  We understand why Dell might want to avoid this question. Despite the announcements, the strategy is still about pushing VCF as the preferred cloud operating system.

This said, it should not detract from the announcement. This is a big step in the march towards true multi-cloud mobility, portability and interoperability. In his keynote, Michael acknowledged how they are working with Kubernetes, and as such, we believe the days of having a choice of cloud operating system on Dell platforms will also happen down the line.

Full press release follows:

DELL TECHNOLOGIES WORLD, LAS VEGAS, NV— April 29, 2019 — Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) and Microsoft Corp. on Monday announced they are expanding their partnership to address a wider range of customer needs and help accelerate digital transformations. Through this collaboration, the companies will deliver a fully native, supported, and certified VMware cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure. Additionally, joint Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers will be able to manage Office 365 across devices via cloud-based integration with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory. VMware (NYSE:VMW) will also extend the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop leveraging VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.

“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 Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Together with Dell Technologies and VMware, we are providing our mutual customers with an integrated cloud experience and digital workplace solutions to open up new opportunities and meet their evolving needs.”

“With this announcement, Dell Technologies and Microsoft are working to simplify our customers’ entire technology environment,” says Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. “Our goal is to provide a single view from edge to core to cloud – an integrated platform for our customers’ digital future.”

The cloud has become fundamental to enabling organisations to move faster toward their business goals. With the cloud’s scalability, enhanced security, productivity, cost savings and more, companies are capitalising on the many benefits.  These benefits are enabling organisations to better tap into the potential of technologies like artificial intelligence and Internet of Things. Through this collaboration, the companies aim to accelerate customer transformations with even more open, flexible and scalable solutions.

“Customers are excited to see us expand our collaboration with Microsoft,” commented Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware. “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.”

New Azure VMware Solutions Provide a Seamless VMware Experience on Microsoft Azure

Azure VMware Solutions are built on VMware Cloud Foundation – a comprehensive offering of software defined compute, storage, networking and management – deployed in Azure.  With these solutions, customers can capitalise on VMware’s broadly deployed and trusted cloud infrastructure while experiencing the power of Microsoft Azure.

Azure VMware Solutions give customers the power to seamlessly migrate, extend and run existing VMware workloads from on-premises environments to Azure without the need to re-architect applications or retool operations.  Customers will be able to build, run, manage, and secure new and existing applications across VMware environments and Microsoft Azure while extending a single model for operations based on established tools, skills and processes as part of a hybrid cloud strategy.  Some of the more popular customer scenarios Azure VMware Solutions will support are app migration and data centre expansion, disaster recovery and business continuity and modern application development.

Azure VMware Solutions enable organisations to tap into Azure’s scale, security and fast provisioning cycles to innovate and modernise applications while also improving performance. By integrating with native Azure services, customers can easily infuse advanced capabilities like AI, Machine Learning, and IoT into their applications enabling new, intelligent experiences.

Azure VMware Solutions are first-party services from Microsoft developed in collaboration with VMware Cloud Verified partners CloudSimple and Virtustream (a Dell Technologies company).

“At Walmart, we’re focused on making it easy, fast, friendly and fun to shop with us no matter where you are – whether online, in our stores or through our pick-up services. We’re excited about the role technology plays in this and how it can help us deliver new services faster. Cloud and Client innovations are an important part of this and a key enabler of our digital transformation,” commented, Clay Johnson, executive vice president and enterprise chief information officer, Walmart “The partnership being announced today between Microsoft, Dell and VMware in Cloud and Client innovations will allow them to better bring their best solutions to customers like us. We look forward to continuing to work with Microsoft, Dell and VMware to accelerate our digital transformation.”

Helping customers advance their digital workspace strategy

With this agreement, mutual Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers will be able to get the most out of their digital workspace across device platforms while maximising existing and future investments. Specifically, customers will be able to use Workspace ONE to manage and secure the powerful productivity features of Office 365 across devices via cloud-based integration with Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory.

Through the new Dell Technologies Unified Workspace offerings, customers can further accelerate their Windows 10 digital transformation journey by leveraging the integration of Microsoft Windows Autopilot and Dell Device Provisioning and Deployment Services, like Dell ProDeploy – all enabled by the integration of Microsoft 365, Workspace ONE, and Dell Provisioning Services.

In addition, Microsoft recently announced Windows Virtual Desktop, the only service that delivers a multi-session Windows 10 experience, optimisations for Office 365 ProPlus, and support for Windows Server Remote Desktop Services (RDS) desktops and apps. As a part of this agreement, VMware will extend the capabilities of Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop to enable customers to further accelerate their cloud initiatives, leveraging VMware Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure. Initial capabilities are expected to be available as a tech preview by the end of calendar year 2019.

Microsoft and VMware are also exploring initiatives to drive further integration between VMware infrastructure and Azure such as integration of VMware NSX with Azure Networking and integration of specific Azure services with VMware management solutions. They will also be exploring bringing specific Azure services to the VMware on-premises customers. Through this collaboration, the companies aim to give customers a more seamless experience across VMware and Azure environments.

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