CloudSimple: The Firm That Got VMware Workloads On Google, Azure Public Clouds

CloudSimple, the third-party developer of the technology that allows VMware workloads run natively on both Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, wants customers to do with GCP and Azure what they can already do on AWS using VMware Cloud on AWS.

CloudSimple, the company with the technology that makes the running of VMware workloads natively on the Google Cloud Platform, is a startup that earlier this year came out of stealth mode with a mandate to enable VMware customers easily move workloads to public clouds.

VMware and Google this week unveiled Google Cloud VMware Solution by CloudSimple, a new offering that leverages VMware Cloud Foundation infrastructure software running on GCP.

Google Cloud VMware Solution by CloudSimple is similar to VMware Cloud on AWS, the 2016 initiative from VMware and Amazon Web Services that allows VMware software-defined data center workloads run natively on the AWS Cloud.

[Related: VMware, Google Partner: VMware Cloud Foundation To Run On GCP]

However, while the VMware Cloud on AWS was jointly developed by VMware and Amazon, the new VMware-on-GCP offering was developed by CloudSimple, a provider of cloud-focused services including data center retirement or migration, cloud bursting, disaster recovery, virtual desktop infrastructure, VMware workloads, and integrated public cloud services.

The company is privately held, and received $35 million in investments from M12, Mayfield, and Redpoint Ventures. M12, formerly known as Microsoft Ventures, is Microsoft's venture capital investment arm. CloudSimple's founder and CEO is Guru Pangal, the co-founder of StorSimple, a cloud storage technology developer acquired by Microsoft in 2012.

This is not the first such initiative for CloudSimple, which came out of stealth on April 29 during the Dell Technologies World conference, said Ken Drachnik, vice president of marketing for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

CloudSimple in May released a similar offering to allow VMware workloads to run natively on the Microsoft Azure cloud, Drachnik told CRN.

"We have a VMware solution on Azure," he said. "Now we're extending it to run on Google Cloud. Fundamentally, they have the same capabilities. We make it easy for people to transition to the cloud without the need to refashion the applications."

CloudSimple does not offer such technology for VMware workloads on AWS since VMware has its own technology to do that, he said.

While VMware and AWS channel partners can sell the VMware Cloud on AWS to their clients, the VMware service for Google and Microsoft are sold by the cloud vendors on their own marketplaces, Drachnik said. CloudSimple also does not sell the service, but focuses on its development.

"At this time, Microsoft sells and provides support for the Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple," he said. "This is the only way our solution is sold today. Our solution is deeply integrated with Azure so you simply log into the Azure portal and 'buy' the solution as you would any other Azure offering. Any partner of Microsoft can sell this as well via the CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) program as well."

CloudSimple currently offers the only way to implement VMware workloads natively on Azure and GCP, Drachnik said.

"We're a software development company that developed a cloud operating system that lets customers run VMware workloads natively in public clouds," he said. "We offer a dedicated private cloud running in a public cloud. With public clouds today, customers have shared services that can be impacted by other users. We offer dedicated private clouds with resources devoted to the customer."

CloudSimple currently has no plans to implement a similar technology for running VMware workloads on AWS, Drachnik said. "VMware Cloud on AWS is well established, and is already working quite well," he said.