VMware Expands Service Provider Opportunities with the vCloud Air Network

In case you missed the news, VMware recently announced the VMware vCloud Air Network, consisting of VMware’s vCloud Air offering and an ecosystem of more than 3,800 service provider partners in over 100 countries. The opportunity for service providers to grow their business in the VMware vCloud Air Network is two-fold: VMware is promoting the service provider partner ecosystem like never before, and our partners will receive tremendous visibility as VMware positions the vCloud Air Network in the market.

Key tenants of the vCloud Air Network are the choice and flexibility of cloud services, compliance certifications and the vertical market expertise delivered by VMware and our partners. VMware is further enabling service provider partners by providing them with the IP and technology we develop with vCloud Air so that they can achieve faster time-to-market and focus on delivering services to their own customers, rather than spending unnecessary cycles on R&D.

This brings us to the second major opportunity for cloud service providers: If you’re not yet a member of the VMware Service Provider Program, now is the time to join. With more than 500,000 customers using VMware, the opportunity has never been greater for service providers to offer these customers a VMware-based cloud solution.  The ability for service providers to showcase their services comes in a variety of forms, such as geographic data center location, vertical market expertise (services targeting industries such as financial services, retail and health care), compliance (clouds focused on PCI, ISO, HIPPA, FISMA, FEDRAMP and so on) and managed services expertise (such as cloud management, monitoring and migrations).

VMware also enables service providers to promote their cloud solutions with technology badges for their VMware offerings and visibility on our vCloud Air Network customer portal. Currently, VMware offers three technology badges providers can achieve:

As you can see, the opportunities are immense, and opportunities to differentiate and grow a VMware-based cloud service have never been better. If you’re not in the VMware Service Provider Program, join now. If you are and want to grow even faster, talk to your regional VMware service provider business development manager or aggregator partner to learn more about program benefits and the product portfolio. We are ready to enable your success!

Geoff Waters is vice president, Channels at VMware. Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly, and are part of Talkin' Cloud's annual platinum sponsorship.