AWS announced the partnership with VMWare 2 years ago and unveiled VMWare Cloud on AWS earlier in 2019. Now AWS will be launching its data center hardware, called AWS Outposts.
AWS Outposts will necessarily bring AWS cloud hardware on-premises. AWS Outposts comprise computing and fully managed storage racks that will allow customers on-premise storage, computing, and connection to the rest of the AWS cloud.
This hybrid experience is available in 2 options:
Option 1: Customers who want to use the same VMWare APIs and control plane, they already have been using to run their infrastructure, will be able to run VMWare Cloud on AWS locally on AWS Outposts.
Option 2: This is for the customers who prefer the same API and control plane and are already used to running AWS’ cloud, but they can now use the AWS native or AWS Outposts.
Now customers will have the opportunity to run the software with native AWS Outposts, starting with the new integrated VMware offering called VMware Cloud Foundation that will feature popular VMware technologies and services that work across VMware and AWS.
The sales and go-to-market model for Amazon Outposts is yet to be decided, but this will not be a hybrid experience that attempts to recreate the stunted version of on-cloud premises, as it is perpetually out of sync with the cloud version and requires a lot of heavy lifting, managing different control planes, custom hardware, and software updates.
