Microsoft and VMware partner across cloud and client to help customers accelerate their digital transformation

Azure VMware Solution

Azure VMware Solution is built on VMware Cloud Foundation - a comprehensive offering of software defined compute, storage, networking and management – deployed in Azure along with an integrated set of Azure services. Customers can capitalize on their existing VMware skills and tools while leveraging the global Microsoft Azure infrastructure.

Azure VMware Solution enables a fast path to the cloud, seamlessly migrating or extending existing VMware workloads from on-premises environments to Azure without the cost, effort or risk of re-architecting applications or retooling operations. Build, run, manage, and secure applications across VMware environments and Microsoft Azure while leveraging familiar and established VMware tools, skills and processes.

Take advantage of Azure as the best cloud for VMware based Microsoft workloads with unmatched price benefits for Windows and SQL server workloads. Azure Hybrid Benefit extends to Azure VMware Solution allowing you to maximize the value of existing on-premises Windows Server and/or SQL Server license investments, when migrating or extending to Azure. Azure VMware Solution customers are also eligible for three years of free Extended Security Updates on Windows Server and SQL 2008.

Some of the more popular customer scenarios Azure VMware Solutions will support are app migration and datacenter expansion, disaster recovery and business continuity and modern application development.

Seamless integration with Azure services provides the opportunity to continue to build cloud competencies and modernize over time. Maintain native VMware tools and management experiences you are familiar with, and incrementally leverage Azure capabilities as required.

Please visit Microsoft’s Azure VMware Solution website for additional information.

Horizon on Microsoft Azure

VMware and Microsoft have partnered on two ways to deliver virtual desktops and applications from Microsoft Azure: Horizon on Azure VMware Solution and Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure. These two platforms work together to offer the most flexibility to help customers meet their goals of cost management, time to value, and risk mitigation.

Horizon on Azure VMware Solution  

Horizon on Azure VMware Solution allows you to expand or extend your on-premises desktop virtualization environments directly to Azure while leveraging the same management practices, tools, and skillsets you use today. Since Azure VMware Solution is vSphere running as a managed service in Azure, you can focus on managing just the desktop virtualization components rather than the underlying SDDC. This results in excellent time to value with the most operational consistency.

Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure 

Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure is a cloud-native DaaS service that represents the most cost-effective approach to delivering Windows 10 from Azure by allowing you to leverage the benefits of Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop with all that VMware Horizon has to offer. This includes support for Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, integration between FSLogix and VMware Dynamic Environment Manager to support Outlook and OneDrive cache roaming with full user environment management, and the advanced Blast Extreme protocol that adapts to changing network conditions in real time and is optimized for Microsoft Teams.

With Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure, the infrastructure and desktop virtualization infrastructure are managed by Microsoft and VMware as a service, leaving you to manage just the desktops and applications.

Hybrid Environments for Ultimate Flexibility 

Both Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure and Horizon on Azure VMware Solution leverage the Horizon Control Plane, which lets you integrate and manage all Horizon environments, on-premises or in the cloud, from a single pane of glass. This hybrid capability means reduced management cycles as well as maximum flexibility for scaling up and down based on the demands of a fluctuating remote workforce.

Accelerate Azure cloud adoption with VMware SD-WAN

VMware SD-WAN accelerates cloud migration to Microsoft Azure giving customers secure, reliable and efficient branch access to Azure cloud services, SaaS-based applications and Private Data Centers. Through a combined solution with Microsoft, IT organizations can automate SD-WAN connectivity into Microsoft Azure as new branches get added through VMware SD-WAN and avoid the need for manual configurations. VMware SD-WAN automates business policies to secure, prioritize and segment applications like Office 365 and Skype for a seamless and consistent user experience.

• Simplified Access, Automation and Operations: Expedite SD-WAN delivery with zero-touch branch network deployment and with centralized automation of business policy. Get Visibility and Insights to application performance at any branch, any time.
• Local reach with global significance: Tap into Microsoft’s Global network with multiple choices for Branch access to Azure WAN using SD-WAN Gateway or SD-WAN Edge.
• Self-Healing network with Intrinsic Security: Business driven segmentation and assured performance for applications with dynamic remediation during brownouts. Inherent Firewall support with options to integrate third party Firewall, as CWS or VNF.

CloudHealth by VMware

CloudHealth is the most trusted software platform for accelerating global business transformation in the cloud. Known for offering the highest levels of data integrity and scalability, CloudHealth enables customers to optimize, secure, and govern their Microsoft Azure environments. Now part of VMware, CloudHealth is the platform of choice for leading enterprises and service providers.

• Simplify Financial Management: Report spend by cost center, drive accountability against budgets and find opportunities to lower your cloud spend
• Streamline Operations: Create custom policies that automate daily cloud operations, speed decision making, and reduce risk
• Strengthen Security and Compliance: Report on vulnerabilities, proactively monitor, detect, and remediate risks in real-time

VMware Tanzu™ Simplifies Application Modernization on Azure

VMware Tanzu is a family of products and services for modernizing your applications and infrastructure with a common goal: deliver better software to production, continuously. The portfolio simplifies multi-cloud operations, while freeing developers to move faster and access the right resources for building the best applications. VMware Tanzu enables development and operations’ teams to work together in new ways that deliver transformative business results.

Azure Spring Cloud

Powered by Spring Cloud and Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Spring Cloud is a fully-managed service for microservices—enabling customers to quickly deploy, operate, and scale Java apps in a fully-managed Microsoft Azure environment.

On September 1, 2021, VMware and Microsoft announced the launch of Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise Tier. For more information, please reach out here.

Bitnami Community Catalog on Azure

Bitnami (Now part of VMware) has long partnered with Microsoft to provide Azure customers access to our expansive range of deploy-ready open source software. The catalog is continually maintained to ensure it’s always up to date, secure, and ‘certified’ ensuring functional testing has been carried out across all deployment targets. Bitnami’s content is made available in the Azure Marketplace, and Azure Stack Hub Marketplace; offered in VM, container, and ARM Template formats; enabling easy, rapid deployment across Azure, Azure Stack, and AKS. More recently we’ve worked with the Azure Data Services team to build solutions that are also pre-integrated to work with Azure Managed Database offerings out of the box.

Accelerate Microsoft 365 Deployments with Workspace ONE

Leveraging best-of-breed technologies from Microsoft and VMware, joint Microsoft 365 and VMware Workspace ONE customers will be able to get the most out of their digital workspace across device platforms while maximizing existing and future investments. Customers can use Workspace ONE to manage and secure the powerful productivity features of Office 365 across devices through integration with Microsoft EM+S and Azure Active Directory.

Ease the Journey to Modern Windows 10 Management with Workspace ONE

VMware Workspace ONE combines cloud-based, modern management of PCs with intelligent insights and automation to empower IT and minimize TCO. It is the most cost-efficient solution to manage and secure the complete PC lifecycle alongside other endpoints from a unified platform. The unified endpoint management (UEM) technology combines the requirements of traditional PC lifecycle management and the modern enterprise mobility management (EMM) approaches to reinvent traditional PC lifecycle management tasks like onboarding, software distribution, patching and security. Now PCs can be managed over-the-air, on- or off-domain, and across use cases.

Workspace ONE is the only UEM platform that supports co-existence across all users, use cases, and phases of the PC lifecycle. It flexibly co-exists with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager to ease risk and effort in transitioning to modern PC management and lower costs faster.

NSX Cloud on Azure

VMware NSX Cloud delivers consistent networking and security for applications running natively in public clouds such as Azure. It leverages the same control plane and data plane as NSX Data Center, enabling end-to-end policy management across data centers and clouds. With NSX Cloud, you can continue using Azure’s infrastructure and application services for workloads without limitation while retaining the same networking and security controls as in the data center. NSX Cloud offers:

• Consistent Security Across Clouds
• End-to-end Operational Control and Visibility
• Precise Control Over Cloud Networking

Optimize Skype for Business on the Horizon platform

Customers get an enhanced user experience with VMware and Microsoft’s optimized solution for Skype for Business. The combined solution creates a direct, peer-to-peer endpoint virtual channel that offloads media processing to endpoints, avoiding excess bandwidth consumption at the datacenter. This means higher productivity for mobile and remote workers accessing Skype from slow public Wi-Fi or mobile networks.