Dell Technologies Inc. subsidiary VMware Inc. is partnering with Microsoft Corp. to bring its infrastructure management software to Azure.

The deal, which was announced today at Dell’s annual customer conference, confirms the partnership rumors that emerged earlier this year. VMware and Microsoft are launching a joint software bundle dubbed Azure VMware Solutions that will make all the former company’s core products available on the cloud platform.

The offering has four main components. They include VMware’s flagship vSphere hypervisor, along with its complementary vSAN storage management and NSX network management products. The fourth component is vCenter, which allows information technology teams to supervise all their company’s vSphere-powered servers through a centralized interface.

This is the same set of tools that a sizable portion of the world’s organizations already use to manage their on-premises applications. Azure VMware Solutions will enable those companies to move on-premises workloads to Microsoft’s cloud relatively seamlessly, as well as manage them the same way they’re used to.

“Customers will be able to capitalize on their existing VMware investments, skills and tools, including VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and vCenter while leveraging the scale, performance and innovation of Azure,” Scott Guthrie, the executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, wrote in a blog post.

A VMware customer looking to, say, set up a backup environment in Azure can now do so without having to adopt new set of tools. The same  goes for companies pursuing more complex projects such as application migrations. This lowered entry barrier should come as a major boon for Microsoft’s cloud business, especially given that arch-rival Amazon Web Services Inc. has offered a similar joint offering with VMware since 2016.

The reason why Azure VMware Solutions is launching three years behind likely has to do with the fact that unlike AWS, Microsoft directly competes with the Dell subsidiary in the hypervisor market. In 2017, the companies got into a brief public dispute after Microsoft made VMware software available on Azure without official approval.

There’s no trace of that former friction in the new partnership. In fact, Microsoft and VMware, whose respective CEOs Satya Nadella (pictured, left) and Pat Gelsinger appeared with Dell CEO Michael Dell (right) today onstage at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, said that they will actively explore opportunities to further integration their products. Among others, the companies plan to look into ways of making certain Azure services available on-premises to VMware customers.

The partnership also encompasses other products. As part of the collaboration, VMware will integrate its Horizon Cloud virtual desktop solution with Microsoft’s recently introduced Windows Virtual Desktop service. Furthermore, the Dell subsidiary plans to add an Azure Active Directory connector to its Workspace One suite for managing employee devices and applications.

Photo: Dell/livestream