VMware to Offer Public Cloud in Australia through Telstra Partnership

logo-WHIR

This article originally appeared at The WHIR

VMware will offer its vCloud Air public cloud in Australia out of Telstra data centers early next year, the company announced on Tuesday. The infrastructure will be owned and operated by VMware and hosted within Australian telecom Telstra’s facilities, and could both reduce latency for Australian customers and address concerns about local cloud hosting and related compliance issues.

Adding a regional presence in Australia makes the hybrid-focused vCloud Air a much more practical option for the Australian enterprise market, which is considered ripe for hybrid adoption.

“We have seen strong uptake in Australia of public cloud services,” Telstra Global Enterprise and Services executive director Erez Yarkoni told ZDNet. “However, we are also seeing increasing interest from customers to identify different cloud strategies appropriate to their individual business needs. We are providing our customers with solutions that enabled multi-cloud environments, so they can optimise performance, cost, and flexibility across multiple applications and workloads.”

With the initial presence in Telstra’s Melbourne data center, vCloud Air will be offered out of nine data centers, five of which are in the US. The company also announced the general availability of its hybrid public cloud in Japan, where one of vCloud Air’s other four data center footprints is located.

“Many of our partners in other markets have experienced growth as a result of access to vCloud Air, while our customers have welcomed the versatility of a hybrid cloud platform that integrates seamlessly with their existing on-premises systems,” said VMware Cloud Services Business Unit executive vice president and general manager Bill Fathers. “We expect the same response in Australia as a critical mature market and bellwether for enterprise IT in the Asia-Pacific region, where we see persistently strong local interest in a more seamless approach to hybrid cloud.”

The announcement coincides with the start of VMware’s Australian vForum partner event, the tenth year for the Sydney convention.

Cloud providers seem to be taking part in a reverse land-rush, establishing data center footprints in large markets as rapidly as possible, partially to address worries about PRISM-style international spying. To that end, both Amazon and Microsoft have recently moved to add presences in Germany. Australia’s laws and public sentiment are much less protectionist, but security concerns may add to the benefit to the enterprise of having its cloud hosted in its home country.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/vmware-offer-public-cloud-australia-telstra-partnership