Datacenter Giant Acquires VMware vCloud
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VMware is selling its cloud operations to a European cloud-hosting provider that is aggressively expanding its U.S. operations.
French cloud provider OVH will acquire VMware's vCloud Air business in a deal expected to close by the end of June. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.
After completion of the acquisiton, OVH said it would operate the service as "vCloud Air Powered by OVH," a platform based on VMware's hybrid cloud technology. Meanwhile, the partners will collaborate on datacenter consolidation and related efforts.
Fortune magazine reported that the deal includes vCloud operations, including datacenters and customers, but the underlying hybrid cloud technology would remain with VMware. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said the acquisition extends its partnership with OVH to give its customers access to OVH's global operations while retaining access to VMware's software-defined datacenter technologies.
OVH, a leading private cloud provider in Europe, is currently expanding its U.S. cloud operations with new datacenters in Vint Hill, Va., and Hillsboro, Ore. It also ranks among the largest cloud service providers in the world with 260,000 servers deployed in its datacenters. The VMware partner also claims more than 200,000 virtual machines running on VMware's vSphere private cloud.
OVH said the east and west coast datacenters are among 23 facilities around the world. The Oregon datacenter will house about 80,000 new servers while the Virginia location is scheduled to open this summer. OVH datacenters use proprietary water-cooling and heat transfer technology in place of air conditioning to cool servers and boost processor performance.
The acquisition allows OVH to offer "larger enterprise deployments," including the ability to migrate hybrid cloud functionality in virtual datacenters, noted Octave Klaba, chairman and CEO of OVH. The cloud provider is based in Roubaix, France.
The partners hope to tap into the steady enterprise shift to cloud, including the U.S. market estimated to be worth at least $7.5 billion by 2020. An annual cloud report released in February noted that public cloud adoption is rising while private cloud uptake is flat. Private cloud leader VMware (NYSE: VMW) saw slight declines in its vSphere and related offerings over the last year while its vCloud Suite held steady at 19 percent of the private cloud market.
Hence, the deal with OVH would help VMware tap into the emerging hybrid cloud market.
