Partners: Cisco Google Faces Huge Hurdles To Overcome VMware Cloud On AWS Momentum

Solution providers say VMware Cloud On AWS is gaining momentum with at least a year head start on the Cisco Google hybrid cloud alliance which is going to have to overcome Cisco's spotty record when it was venturing out of its networking comfort zone.

"If you want cross-public or hybrid cloud, VMware definitely has a leg up there without a doubt," said a senior executive at one large solution provider that works with several vendors, including VMware and Cisco. "When Cisco moves out of the network or compute space, they typically don't really do a good job."

The solution provider executive pointed to Cisco's Invicta flash storage initiative, which fizzled after about two years, as well as what he called "very lukewarm response in the market" to the San Jose, Calif., networking giant's HyperFlex hyper-converged infrastructure solution and UCS Director automation platform.

[Related: Top VMware Exec: Cisco-Google Cloud Deal Is 'Clear Validation' Of VMware On AWS Vision]

Partners say Cisco, which once had ambitions of competing in the public cloud market against the likes of AWS and Google, threw in the towel on its Intercloud strategy earlier this year. Cisco discontinued its Cisco Intercloud Service (CIS) public cloud earlier this year.

The Cisco-Google hybrid cloud solution, announced Wednesday, is expected to become available in the second half of 2018. The offering combines Google Cloud services with Cisco on-premises networking, security, and hyper-convergence offerings.

Still, VMware Cloud on AWS, which was announced a year ago and became available in August, beat Cisco-Google to the market, and is already providing customers with the flexibility and economics they want from a hybrid cloud solution, the solution provider executive said.

A top executive at a Western U.S. data center solution provider called VMware Cloud on AWS "simply awesome," and said its capabilities and by-the-hour pricing are crucial to its appeal.

"It's the real deal for getting organizations into hybrid cloud computing where cloud is an operating model versus a destination," the executive said. "You can have the benefits of the capex IT model on-premise and the opex model of public cloud."

"It allows you to leverage on-premise software-defined data center, AWS and AWS services as desired, and they work together," the executive said. "It also gives customers the choice to put workloads where they want them depending on the use case. You can move workloads around at your discretion. It really is a killer offering."

Another top solution provider executive, who partners with VMware and Cisco, said VMware Cloud on AWS is battle tested.

"It makes financial sense, and if you already have workloads on AWS, you can run legacy apps on VMware Cloud and have them very closely located to AWS," he said. "The traditional latency issues you have with legacy apps, you get around that."

VMware COO Sanjay Poonen took a shot at the Cisco-Google partnership Wednesday in a snarky tweet that called the deal "clear validation of VMware Hybrid Cloud vision 1yr ago," and adding "glad to see others embrace same vision."

Cisco declined to comment for the story.