VMware Explore has barely commenced in San Francisco this week, and the first of many announcements is the enhanced collaboration between the two tech giants. The conference theme is on powering the multi-cloud era, and this announcement serves as an intriguing prelude to what is yet to come.

As well as reducing cost, complexity, and risk, the collaboration between VMware and NetApp focuses on accelerating the performance and delivery of traditional and modern applications and simplifying daily operations through new integrations between VMware and NetApp data management infrastructure.


That's the official announcement. In practical terms, this means

• NetApp and VMware work together across AWS, Azure, and GCP to certify and support VMware Cloud and NetApp Cloud Services. Thus, customers running on VMware using either NetApp or non-NetApp storage environments on-premises can seamlessly migrate, extend, or protect data-demanding enterprise workloads and files to the cloud with reduced cost and risk.
• Suppose you have legacy applications running on virtual machines. In that case, you can right-size cloud compute and storage architectures to reduce and control the costs of running data-demanding workloads in the cloud at scale while avoiding the cost of refactoring applications from on-premises into the cloud.
• And, of course, modern apps are well-supported, with VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu allowing IT teams to manage virtual machines and orchestrate containers from one unified platform. Specifically, VMware Tanzu and VMware Cloud Foundation support NetApp ONTAP-based storage arrays, which all means customers can seamlessly build out a flexible data fabric for traditional virtual machines and modern, containerised applications.
• NetApp is a design partner with VMware Tanzu container-native storage, integrating Astra Control with VMware Tanzu for VMware vSphere virtual volumes (Viols) deployments. You can now simplify and accelerate new modern app development and deployment alongside traditional virtualised workloads using enterprise-scale high-performance and protected solutions that are jointly validated and supported.
• vSphere and vVols now include new and expanded support of key technologies from NetApp file and block storage platforms. This includes new certification and support to enable the use of Viols with NVMe-oF to allow enhanced block storage flash performance and more granular virtual machine storage management over multiple types of network transports.
• This provides greater performance for traditional virtualised workloads, leveraging existing infrastructure investments while simplifying daily IT operations through jointly validated and supported solutions.

NetApp and VMware have built their partnership on the foundation of shared experience, with some 20,000 mutual customers over 20 years. NetApp is a consistent VMware strategic design partner for current and future VMware Cloud offerings.

“Customers today are faced with complex challenges to optimise their current IT investments while laying a path forward to modernise and accelerate their business,” said NetApp CEO George Kurian. “Together, NetApp and VMware have helped thousands of customers solve their multi-cloud challenges by effectively managing their enterprise workloads in any environment. By delivering powerful new solutions that help companies optimise their virtual data centres, modernise their applications, and provide cost-efficient, enterprise-class data management services to VMware Cloud, we can meet customers anywhere they are on their cloud journey.”

“At this stage it’s clear: Multi-cloud is the model we’re going to rely on for many years to come. It is the de facto operating model for the digital era, giving customers the freedom required to build, deploy, and manage applications in the way that best suits their business requirements,” said VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram, Chief Executive Officer, VMware. “Together, VMware and NetApp offer businesses the multi-cloud flexibility and choice they need to leverage the best innovations in any cloud environment.”

I’m ready for #VMwareExplore - came in from Australia for all that’s new in the centre of the multi-cloud universe. pic.twitter.com/r2qmEMFGxW

— davidmwilliams (@davidmwilliams) August 29, 2022