Modernising hybrid cloud for regulated industries

VMware Inc. and IBM have announced at VMware Explore 2022 an expanded partnership to help global clients and partners modernize mission-critical workloads and expedite time to value in hybrid cloud environments. The expanded relationship includes IBM Consulting as a VMware GSI partner, the companies’ intent to deliver new jointly engineered IBM and VMware Cloud solutions and joint development and go to market. Together, IBM and VMware are planning to help clients in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare and public sector address the cost, complexity and risk of migrating and modernizing mission-critical workloads in the cloud.

Companies, including those in regulated industries, are looking to modernize core business workloads to create better experiences for their clients and comply with industry regulations. Further, the current economic climate makes refactoring applications for cloud unrealistic for many organizations, driving increased emphasis on a more agile modernization strategy. The planned IBM and VMware offerings are intended to increase choice and flexibility for companies to execute their digital transformation strategies.

“In today’s market, organizations want to modernize and transform operations quickly. But modernization and innovation cannot come at the cost of security and trust built with clients,” said Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform. “Together, IBM and VMware are supporting our mutual clients in regulated industries by offering something no two other companies are delivering– to more easily leverage hybrid cloud services securely -- wherever and however they wish to run them.”

“With IBM and VMware, our customers get a combination of innovation and consulting experience based on decades of close collaboration and experience in meeting the business challenges of thousands of customers around the world,” said Mark Lohmeyer, Senior Vice President and General Manager, cloud infrastructure business group, VMware. “This ongoing collaboration will enable us to better streamline the user experience for our mutual enterprise customers looking to run VMware mission critical workloads that require higher levels of security, resiliency and compliance support in financial services and regulated industries.”

Ecosystem partnerships such as the one between IBM and VMware are critical to helping some of the world’s most influential companies modernize their workloads with a focus on security and efficiency, while providing choice in how to deploy and manage them. Today's news builds on the companies’ longstanding relationship, having collaborated over the past 20 years to help clients realize their technology goals.

The companies’ expanded partnership includes:

IBM Consulting named Global Systems Integrator (GSI) for VMware -- As part of the expanded partnership, IBM Consulting is now a GSI Partner for VMware to help clients accelerate their business transformation and hybrid cloud journeys. IBM Consulting will provide services to migrate, modernize and manage clients’ most important workloads across any hybrid, multi-cloud environment in an open, more secured way. This is critical for clients who are running applications across more than one cloud and are looking for the deep skills and expertise required to help with the security, management and reliability needed in these environments.

Expansion of VMware and IBM Joint Innovation Fund -- Since launching the IBM and VMware Joint Innovation Lab in 2018, 20 hybrid cloud and AI-focused projects have been completed to extend the capabilities of IBM Cloud and address client needs for mission-critical VMware workloads. For example, the creation of a VMware-enabled reference architecture was developed and integrated into IBM Cloud for Financial Services offerings. The Lab brings together engineering, sales, marketing and enablement capabilities from both companies and is a co-innovation engine for solving client problems. The new agreement will expand the Lab’s innovation pipeline for another three years with funding for the development of joint products and solutions.

Availability of IBM Cloud Satellite wherever VMware Applications run -- IBM and VMware are collaborating to enable IBM Cloud Satellite for VMware. For workloads that need to remain on-premises, IBM Cloud Satellite now supports VMware workloads in any environment where they run, bringing the enhanced security and open innovation of IBM Cloud services to the client’s datacenter. IBM Cloud Satellite brings a secured and unified layer of cloud services for clients, in any environment.