Since VMware Inc., and Amazon Web Services Inc. announced their partnership in 2016 with offerings such as VMware Cloud on AWS, the two previously fierce competitors have continued to deepen their partnership. As Amazon RDS on VMware — which helps customers deploy managed databases in on-premises VMware environments — begins previewing for customers, Amazon just announced another service called Amazon Outposts, which will bring native AWS services on-premises through the VMware Cloud on AWS.

“We’ve basically said [to Amazon], if you want to do anything on-premises, you should do it with VMware, because you’re going have to go through this door called VMware,” said Sanjay Poonen (pictured), chief operating officer of VMware. “If Amazon’s going to do more on-premises, why not do it with the leader in that area, VMware?”

Poonen spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. They discussed Amazon and VMware’s partnership and the future of hybrid cloud.

Hybrid cloud and on-prem capabilities a must for businesses

Although Amazon wasn’t initially on board with the idea of hybrid cloud, VMware was the first to start using the term three or four years back, according to Poonen. And as the idea has progressed, VMware has seen more and more customers embracing the idea behind merging cloud options with on-premises capabilities.

“They began to realize you need both [hybrid and on-prem],” Poonen said. “They’re betting big with us because they see this as the place for both of them, and they’re also betting big with AWS.”

The demand for consistency among customers is not lost on companies like AWS and VMware, according to Poonen. And this demand for consistency offers the unique opportunity for companies like AWS and VMware to join together to become leaders in the market for services around hybrid cloud.

“VMware Cloud on AWS is … the best hybrid cloud option,” Poonen said. “You get the best of the on-premise world and the public cloud. We have a goal to get to thousands of customers and then tens of thousands of customers. We’re going to continue down that march.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s extensive coverage of AWS re:Invent:

Photo: SiliconANGLE