Prior to VMworld there where rumours floating around that the vCloud Air Network was going to undergo a name change and sure enough at VMworld 2017 in the US, the vCAN was no more and that the VMware Cloud and Service Provider program would be renamed to the VMware Cloud Partner Program. There has been a number of announcements around the VCPP including the upcoming release of vCloud Director 9.0, a new verification program and also at VMworld Europe new cross cloud capabilities with VMware HCX.

VMware is continuing to make significant investments to expand and enhance our portfolio of cloud products and services. At the same time, we will continue to grow and refine our program to better address your needs as a partner and, as a result, enable you to provide even better cloud service options to our mutual customers around the globe.

The VMware Cloud Verified program is interesting and I’m still a little unsure what it delivers above and beyond non verified VMware Clouds…however it seems like a good logo opportunity for providers to aspire to.

This name change was expected given the wrapping up of vCloud Air, however from talking with a lot of people within the old vCloud Air Network, the name will be missed. To me it was the best thing to come out of the whole vCloud Air experiment but I understand why it had to be changed. This isn’t so much a fresh start for the program but more of a signal that it’s growing and improving and is looking to remain a key cornerstone of VMware multi/hybrid cloud strategy.

Even though I am out of the program and not working for a partner anymore, I am very much connected by way of my interactions with the Veeam Cloud and Service Provider program (VCSP) and the success of both is tied back to not only the individual companies remaining innovative and competitive against the large hyper-scalers. It’s also incumbent on VMware and Veeam to continue to offer the tools to be able to make our providers successful.

As a critical component of the Cloud Provider Platform, the recently-announced vCloud Director 9.0 (vCloud Director 9.0 announcement blog) enables simplified cloud consumption for tenants, a fast path to hybrid services, and rapid vSphere-to-cloud migrations for cloud providers worldwide. VMware continues to demonstrate its commitment to investing in the critical products, tools, and solutions that help cloud providers rapidly deploy and monetize highly scalable cloud environments with the least amount of risk.

The name doesn’t matter…but the technology and execution of service sure as hell does!

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