Google Cloud appears to be opening up to a new series of cooperation with some potentially surprising new partnerships that could see it attract more customers who have loyalties to other brands, too.
According to a Google Open Source Blog post, Google Cloud Engine customers can now choose to use VMWare ESXi as their underlying hypervisor where they were previously required to use the open-source KVM hypervisor.
Google explains that new users can, “migrate [their] VMware-based disaster recovery and backup workloads to Google Cloud to reduce management and storage costs, while using the same tools, processes, and policies that [they] use on-premises.”
Google Cloud VMWare Engine
A support document highlight’s its “key partners”, Zerto, Dell, Veeam, Cohesity, and NetApp, which have ”certified disaster recovery, backup and storage solutions that work seamlessly with VMware Engine.”
Google is inviting customers to try it out now, offering an enticing proposition of money-saving by reviewing whether users may be able to automate some of their current manual processes using infrastructure-as-code.
The company has also recently announced plans to bring Microsoft 365 to its Chromebooks. Up until now, Microsoft users have had to use the progressive web app versions of its office software, however the company is set to offer a more fixed solution with installable apps.
A full launch isn’t expected for another couple of months, but developers and beta testers may be able to get their hands on the tools even sooner.
More widely, some have been led to believe that such “improbable alliances” may become more commonplace, including The Register. In a world of growing economic pressure, companies may look to reduce overlap and share technologies in a cost-cutting measure, and this duo of Google announcements could just be the start of a new trend to grace the tech industry.
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