GCP, VMware expand partnership to ease migration to the cloud

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and VMware are expanding their existing partnership and making it easier for enterprise customers to move their on-premises applications to the cloud.

In a blog post, Bronwyn Hastings, VP of global technology partnerships at Google Cloud, said that the companies have added Google Cloud VMware Engine to VMware Cloud Universal, making it possible for enterprises to migrate workloads and applications to Google Cloud by making purchases through VMware Cloud Universal.

Hastings said that by using VMware Cloud Universal, enterprises can “flexibly purchase credits, and leverage existing spend and unused VMware Cloud Universal credits.” 

Specifically, she said that the program offers the following:

  • Financial flexibility by letting enterprises redeem VMware Cloud Universal credits for Google Cloud VMware Engine
  • Streamlined consumption by enabling enterprises to burn down their Google Cloud commits while purchasing from VMware; and
  • Use of existing VMware licensing investments through VMware Cloud Universal program for Google Cloud VMware Engine.

The companies said that by combining Google Cloud VMware Engine with VMware Cloud Universal, customers will have an average total cost of ownership (TCO) savings of 38% over three years compared to an on-premises environment. Plus, they will see an average savings in labor costs of $115,000 using existing VMware and Google Cloud tools.

In May 2020 VMware and GCP announced Google Cloud VMware Engine making it possible for enterprises to migrate their existing VMware-based applications to Google Cloud without rewriting them.

Hastings said that customers are now leveraging Google Cloud VMware Engine for a variety of use cases including application migration, virtual desktop infrastructure, disaster recovery, and spinning up new capacity. 

Both VMware and GCP said that some enterprises are able to make the migration from on-premises to cloud happen in less than hour.

Once in the cloud, customers can create hybrid applications and have better access to Google services such as BigQuery for real-time data analytics and cloud-native container-based architectures on Kubernetes, Hastings added.