Arrow Takes on VMware vCloud Hybrid

Arrow Electronics (ARW) unveiled an expansion of its cloud services today with the introduction of the VMware (VMW) vCloud Hybrid Service, which will be distributed via the ArrowSphere platform to its North American channel partners.

The announcement came as part of VMware’s Partner Exchange 2014 (PEX 2014) in San Francisco. According to Arrow, the vCloud Hybrid Service offers automated replication, monitoring and high availability of applications without requiring code changes, allowing for simple deployment into public, private and hybrid clouds for low overall costs of ownership.

“We are pleased to join with Arrow to offer VMware vCloud Hybrid Service, which enables customers to obtain comprehensive IT services from partners, while providing an easy and fast path to achieve the agility and efficiency of the public cloud,” said Frank Rauch, vice president of Americas Partner Organization at VMware, in a prepared statement. “VMware vCloud Hybrid Service is built on the trusted foundation of VMware vSphere, and it provides customers with a common platform to seamlessly extend their data center to the cloud, without having to change or rewrite their applications.”

The announcement—not to mention the earlier news regarding VMware’s partnership with Google to bring its Horizon desktop-as-a-service offering to Chromebooks—is yet another sign of the increasing popularity of cloud-based virtual systems for enterprise use within the channel.

“VMware vCloud Hybrid Service utilizes the same platform, skills and investments that are already widely deployed across the IT industry. This can greatly simplify and speed the deployment of hybrid cloud solutions,” said Jim Livingston, vice president of services for Arrow’s Enterprise Computing Solutions business in North America, in the press release. “We are pleased to bring this capability to market in the channel-built ArrowSphere platform.”