OREANDA-NEWS. April 20, 2016. Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), a leading global technology distributor, announced today that it is now offering VMware on IBM Cloud through the Avnet Cloud Marketplace to deliver a first-class hybrid cloud experience. This offering leverages VMware and IBM’s recent strategic partnership designed to help enterprises take better advantage of the cloud’s speed and economics. It allows Avnet’s partners, initially in the U.S. and Canada, to enable their customers to easily extend their existing workloads from their on-premises software-defined data centers (SDDC) to the cloud.

VMware solutions on the IBM Cloud purchased through the Avnet Cloud Marketplace offers greater flexibility for Avnet partners and their customers. Pricing on this IBM offering enables better budgeting for software spend, so customers pay only for what they use while solving the data location and management problems they constantly face. Current Avnet/SoftLayer partners can gain access to VMware technologies through their existing Avnet/SoftLayer agreements. For new partners, it is as simple as establishing an Avnet/SoftLayer relationship through the Avnet Cloud Marketplace. It’s never been easier for VMware customers to establish their own hybrid cloud environments.

“VMware solutions on the IBM Cloud represents a significant milestone because it brings two industry giants together to deliver the next generation of hybrid cloud computing solutions for the benefit of our partners,” said Tony Madden, senior vice president and supplier business executive, Avnet Technology Solutions, Global. “By delivering the solution through the Avnet Cloud Marketplace, we will help accelerate the adoption of the enterprise hybrid cloud, taking full advantage of IBM Cloud’s global scale and footprint. This new offering enables our partners to help their customers easily embrace the cloud while preserving their existing investments and creating new business opportunities.”

“This alliance enables partners to operate a seamless cloud experience for their customers that spans hybrid environments. Regardless of where customers are running their workloads – on-premises in their own data centers or in the IBM Cloud – their hybrid environments run on a consistent stack of VMware software components,” said David Wilson, vice president, IBM Cloud Business Partners and Channel Innovation. “VMware partners can now take advantage of IBM Cloud’s growing footprint of over 45 data centers worldwide (16 countries) to power their customers’ deployments on IBM’s bare-metal hardware infrastructure service in a flexible, cost-efficient way through the Avnet Cloud Marketplace.”

Additionally, partners can rely on Avnet’s 30+ years of in-depth IBM expertise and more than a decade of experience developing VMware-based solutions. They can also draw upon the expertise of the Avnet Cloud Solutions team to help them and their customers transform IT with data center automation and cloud solutions that embrace new consumption models and enable services delivery. Avnet’s cloud team has developed deep expertise and extensive cloud capabilities through its role in deploying more than 900,000 workloads in the cloud in the past two years alone across a range of public, private and hybrid cloud environments. Download the IDC white paper highlighting how the longstanding partnership between Avnet and IBM is helping business partners transform and succeed in the cloud market. Also, check out this informative new video on the Avnet Cloud Marketplace.