We are excited to showcase new advancements and solutions that demonstrate IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions is the right cloud to run your VMware workloads.

When IBM Cloud and VMware began their partnership in 2016, we set on a joint mission to deliver secured, enterprise-grade, cloud-based VMware solutions with unparalleled expertise at global scale. Several years into our strategic cloud partnership, we’ve been doing just that. With more than a decade of deep VMware technical expertise, IBM is one of the largest operators of VMware workloads in the world. In fact, IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions is chosen by nearly 2,000 enterprise clients, including some of the largest global enterprises, such as American Airlines, Osram, Fujifilm, and CNHi.

Today, at VMworld US 2019, we are showcasing new advancements and solutions that demonstrate how we’re designing IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions to be the best cloud to run your VMware workloads.

Enterprise-grade

IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions has been architected for small and large enterprises who want a higher level of isolation from the public internet with comparable level of visibility and control as on-premise VMware Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDC), with root-level access down to hypervisor. 

Our large global footprint of data centers allows us to offer support for mission-critical workloads with automated failovers to three different data centers in multizone regions. This fully managed global cloud architecture is designed to help enterprises avoid unexpected downtime, with a targeted aggregate availability of 99.99%.

Today, we are pleased to announce the addition of multiple starter node sizes designed for more efficient options to get started. IBM Cloud also offers SAP-certified servers for VMware workloads, allowing you to run S/4HANA on cloud.

With 100+ configuration combinations, clients can choose the right infrastructure designed to optimize performance and reduce costs. We are continually making enhancements to our infrastructure and deployment options in order to efficiently support the wide breadth of business-critical applications our clients are looking to run on the cloud.

For example, earlier this year, IBM Cloud became the first major cloud provider to globally deploy 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® scalable processors (Cascade Lake), delivering workload and service acceleration by combining performance improvements with additional hardware-enhanced security and service delivery capabilities.

VMware has certified vSphere for Cascade Lake so, today, we are pleased to announce clients can now take full advantage of these capabilities in IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions.

Additionally, we continue to add native support for VMware solutions in our SDDC stack on IBM Cloud engineered for greater choice and operational consistency. Clients can now leverage VMware vRealize Operations and VMware vRealize Log Insight to monitor the health, performance, and capacity of their SDDC stack on the IBM Cloud.

We are working to make it easier to start migrating and modernizing VMware workloads by providing the same level of control and operational consistency as on-premises on a cloud that is built to scale, from simple to complex workloads.

Read the blog post “Enterprise-Grade Updates and Advancements for Running VMware on the IBM Cloud” to learn more.

Security leadership

IBM Cloud provides high levels of key management encryption with FIPS 140-2 level 4 certified hardware for data encryption—at rest and in flight.* Clients have the ability to bring their own encryption keys, including their keys for vSAN and vSphere, that only they manage. Compliance with data sovereignty regulations can be simpler on IBM Cloud, with geo-fencing and assurance that decryption occurs at trusted locations.

Earlier this year, we announced a collaboration with Caveonix to provide you with tools to enable you to enforce compliance against rule-based policies for GDPR and other regulations. Even the most security-conscious enterprises can assess their compliance and audit readiness with Caveonix. Today, we are announcing deeper integration of the Caveonix and Fortinet platforms with our IBM Cloud Secure Virtualization solution, powered by HyTrust and Intel TXT technology, in a new design for a secured and compliance-ready hybrid cloud to help support your compliance needs.

This new solution design can help mitigate breach risk of your business-critical workloads, is designed to help clients ease complex security and compliance processes, and can provide a unified visualization layer for risk management.

Read the blog post “New IBM Cloud Hybrid Architecture Designed for Your Security and Compliance-Readiness Needs” to learn more.

VMware expertise at global scale

Underpinning all of our technology are IBM Services experts who’ve already migrated and modernized over 100,000 workloads and applications to multiple clouds. This expertise, paired with the right cloud for VMware solutions, allows us to advise, move, build, and manage across the journey to cloud.

A new capability under IBM Cloud Deployment Services that we are announcing today is a multicloud orchestration and an automation platform for both virtualization and container workloads, powered by enterprise-ready standard blueprints. This solution offers different options for both on-premise and off-premise and is now also available with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform in addition to IBM and VMware orchestration capabilities.

We are also making available a fully managed Private Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service that will provide clients with cloud flexibility in a private, on-premise environment. With this service, clients in highly regulated industries and geographies can have the benefits of a public cloud while helping them manage data residency restrictions and security requirements, and when combined with IBM Cloud for VMware solutions, truly enable a hybrid cloud strategy.

Come see us at VMworld 2019

Learn more at VMworld 2019 in San Francisco and be sure to stay tuned to our blog for the latest updates.

*The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 140-2 is a U.S. government computer security standard used to approve cryptographic modules. It is issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Level 4 is the highest level of security.