Virtualisation vendor VMware extended its bid for dominance in cloud computing yesterday with the announcement of a new service that allows third party hosting providers to offer their computing resources as pay-as-you-go utility services, in a manner similar to cloud pioneer Amazon Web Services.
Four hosting providers, Logica, Hosting.com, BlueLock, and TerreMark – in which VMware owns a stake – have signed up for the vCloud Express technology.
VMware said its technology allows hosting providers to offer their services cheaply, and in such a way that customers can procure computing power quickly and scalably. “"When you see the vCloud Express logo you know it means fast and cheap,” said VMware CEO Paul Maritz at the company’s global expo VMworld in San Francisco yesterday.
VMware has in the last twelve months made a raft of announcements regarding its cloud computing initiative. And earlier this month, it acquired SpringSource, a company whose technology will allow enterprise IT shops or hosting providers to build ‘platform-as-a-service’ offerings, with let developers build applications directly on top of cloud infrastructure.
With frequent service updates from Amazon Web Services and VMware, cloud computing technology is at present moving forward at a very rapid pace. There has yet to be any concrete evidence, however, that this rapid technological progression is driving adoption.
