I’m a firm believer that modern virtualized infrastructure s quickly becoming the on-ramp to the cloud as the major hypervisor vendors retool their products and implement ever deeper hooks into cloud environments. Microsoft, for example, has made no secret of the fact that the upcoming Windows Server 2012 R2’s Azure integration opportunities are intended to provide customers with on-premises-like flexibility for cloud-based services.
In an effort to push ahead of the pack and ensure long-term viability as the hypervisor battle becomes the cloud battle, VMware has introduced the VMware vCloud Hybrid Service. The service is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering from VMware that provides customers with the opportunity to seamlessly shift running workloads between local systems and the cloud. The service runs the exact same vSphere underpinnings that are found in the corporate data center meaning that staff retraining is minimal and the service can be very easily implemented.
The beauty of these emerging hybrid cloud offerings from Microsoft and VMware is the fact that they run workloads unmodified. Customers can simply use their favorite workload migration tools and move workloads from the on-premises environment to the cloud. These kinds of products help IT organizations establish easy pathways to the cloud with relatively little risk and a lot of potential reward.
To learn more about the service, visit VMware’s Hybrid Service product page.