New cloud services business revealed

©Wavebreak Media Ltd via 123RF

Virtustream is expected to generate multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in recurring revenue in 2016, focused on enterprise-centric cloud services, with an outlook to grow to a multi-billion business over the next several years. Virtustream will be a leader in hybrid cloud, one of the largest markets for IT infrastructure spending. The company will provide a complete spectrum of managed services for on-premises infrastructure and its enterprise-class Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform, enabling customers to move all their applications, including mission-critical applications, to cloud-based IT environments. Virtustream will offer a compatible public cloud experience for customers who deploy the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution within their business.

"Through Virtustream, we are addressing the changes in buying patterns and IT cloud operation models that we are seeing in the market. Our customers consistently tell us that they are focused on their IT transformations and journeys to the hybrid cloud. The EMC Federation is now positioned as a complete provider of hybrid cloud offerings," said Joe Tucci, EMC Corporation Chairman and CEO.

Integrated assets

The new business will incorporate and align the cloud capabilities of EMC Information Infrastructure, VCE, Virtustream and VMware to provide the complete spectrum of on- and off- premises offerings including: VMware vCloud Air, VCE Cloud Managed Services, Virtustream's Infrastructure-as-a-Service, and EMC's Storage Managed Services and Object Storage Services offerings.

Virtustream will integrate these assets to provide customers with a unified infrastructure-as-a-service offering, designed to support the complete spectrum of business workloads, with a service portfolio that spans a full range of services and deployment options. The business will integrate and extend existing on-premises EMC Federation private cloud deployments into the public cloud, maintaining a common experience for developers, managers, architects and end users. Virtustream's cloud services will be delivered directly to customers and through partners.

VMware will establish a Cloud Provider Software business unit led by Ajay Patel, VMware senior vice president, focused on delivering cloud software and solutions to cloud providers including VMware's vCloud Air Network, to help them rapidly harness the opportunity of the hybrid cloud. This new unit will incorporate assets and people from the VMware vCloud Air Application Services business, vCloud Director and vCloud Air Network teams, as well as Virtustream's Software Business including Advisor Planning and Migration tool, xStream cloud management platform and Viewtrust governance, risk and compliance solution.

Market opportunity

Nearly one-third of all IT infrastructure spending is going to cloud-related technologies, according to a recent 451 Group report. In addition, the focus of Cloud Services buyers is seen to be shifting up to the application stack. The demand for a simple infrastructure on demand utility is giving way to higher levels of interest in solutions that include integration and management. Enterprise adoption overall is still on the rise with a shift in focus to private and hybrid architectures. The Global ERP market is estimated to reach $41.2B by 20202 with Cloud-based ERP now growing faster than on-premises ERP3.