VMware Cloud on AWS Master Services Competency Unleashed

VMware is doubling down on its Amazon cloud partnership by launching a new VMware Cloud on AWS Master Services Competency with the goal of getting more VMware partners trained and certified to sell the solution.

“Just this quarter alone, we’ve gone from zero to five Fortune 500 logos buying VMware Cloud on AWS,” said Luke Norris, CEO and founder of Denver-based Faction, one of the premier VMware Cloud [VMC] on AWS managed services providers and VMware partner. “VMware is recognizing the cloud piece with this new master competency. Therefore, we can really drive this pinpoint solution that our customers are asking for us and we team with VMware on. We’re just going to drive deep, deep competency and effort on VMC on AWS.”

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based virtualization star launched the new competency during its Partner Leadership Summit on Tuesday along with the unveiling of the VMware Partner Connect program. VMware Cloud on AWS was the overall winner in CRN’s 2018 Hybrid Cloud category.

[Related: 5 Things To Know About The New VMware Partner Connect Program]

The VMware Cloud on AWS Master Services Competency will provide partners with the training and capability to offer professional services for VMware Cloud on AWS. Partners who receive the competency also receive digital badges, priority engagement and significant education discounts.

Jenni Flinders, vice president and Global Channel Chief at VMware, said the new AWS competency is “all about practice development” to get more partners to invest and understand the offering.

“If you think about it, this is VMware and AWS. You need to have the integration and migration capabilities from a practice standpoint. Not every partner will want to do that, which is fine, but the partners who do see that opportunity and do want to build up a practice,” said Flinders. “VMware Cloud on AWS rounds out the portfolio of Master Services Competencies that we now have available in the market.”

VMware now has a total of five Master Services Competencies: Data Center Virtualization; Cloud Management and Automation; Network Virtualization; Desktop and Mobility; and VMware Cloud Foundation on AWS.

VMware says its Master Services Competencies empower partners with greater knowledge, skills and tools to address digital transformation initiatives across industries as customers seek more flexibility, efficiency and lower costs. The competencies give customers access to validated and certified partners with the resources, tools and skills to deliver services for next-generation VMware technologies, according to Flinders.

VMware Cloud on AWS enables businesses to create vSphere data centers on Amazon Web Services, which include vCenter Server for management, vSAN for storage and NSX for networking and security.

Faction’s Norris said his company is winning new VMC on AWS customers around disaster recovery and the scalability of the solution.

“Customers have a significant comfort with the fact that VMware on AWS is going to be elastic. Therefore, they can come in with a pilot light and know that it can expand instantly to a very, very large scale to support them in a failover or a production scenario,” said Norris. “Then we also have managed production use cases where customers love the fact that they can have VMware workloads, they don’t have to replatform, they can take advantage of the elastic versatility at Amazon and they can mix and match it with AWS native services.”

VMware on AWS was unleashed at VMworld 2017. In a recent interview with CRN, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said the two company’s relationship has shifted dramatically over the past few years.

“I like to joke about the fact that, five years ago, I stood on stage and said, ‘If you use Amazon, you’re stupid.’ And [AWS CEO] Andy [Jassy] would stand on stage and say, ‘If you run a data center, you’re stupid,’” said Gelsinger. “Now we’re doing bro hugs at the Re:Invent stage and declaring a joint, hybrid future. We’ve come a long way.”