As VMware Inc.’s preferred backup and replication partner, Veeam Software Inc. work closely with the cloud and virtualization software and services company. Veeam believes that as the fortunes of one company goes, so goes the other company’s as well, according to Peter McKay (pictured, right), president, chief operating officer and member of the board of directors at Veeam Software.

In light of this philosophy, Veeam has been broadening its ecosystem partner community to make it easier for customers, especially in the enterprise, to work better together.

“We continue to look for ways that we can work better together, development-wise, and also go to market,” McKay said.

McKay and Sanjay Poonen (pictured, left), chief operating officer, customer operations at VMware,  joined Stu Miniman (@stu) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during VeeamOn 2017, held in New Orleans, Louisiana.

In addition to discussing the two companies’ mutually beneficial relationship, they also spoke about both organizations’ expansion into the cloud ecosystem. (* Disclosure below.)

Changes to cloud strategy

When VMware looked at its hybrid cloud strategy, it realized it needed to make some changes, including embracing the public cloud, Poonen stated. The company’s partnership with Amazon Web Services Inc., VMware’s preferred primary cloud partner, has been helpful in giving people a vision of where the data center is heading.

For AWS, VMware wants to build the software bridge to allow workloads to move there, then come back, if they so choose. Also, for specialized workloads that might sit on the cloud, VMware started off with IBM and AWS clouds. But then customers requested that the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure service running on IBM also run in Microsoft Azure, because it’s an Azure workload. So it did, and that capability was announced during VeeamOn yesterday, Poonen explained.

As for the VMware, Veeam team-up, Veeam has integrated even further with VMware’s vSphere, vSAN and vRealize, opening up the platform for containers and other cloud services, according to McKay. Both development organizations are working closely together; as VMware is expanding its reach and its platform, so is Veeam.

“Hundreds of thousands of companies have made themselves successful on [VMware’s] platform; we want to continue that,” Poonen concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of VeeamOn 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VeeamOn 2017. Neither Veeam Software Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial influence on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE