Some customers are still hesitant to try the cloud, and VMware is now trying to ease their apprehension. The company is offering a “test drive” of its vCloud service to both potential and current VMware customers.

The vCloud Service Evaluation provides customers with full access to vCloud features and can even support current apps and virtual machines that customers may already have. Registration takes about 15 minutes to get customers up and running. The service is not free, but will only cost customers 4 cents per hour to run a Linux virtual machine with 1 GB of RAM.

The announcement comes just days before VMworld 2012, scheduled to start August 26 in San Francisco. VMware likely hopes to get a head start on the competition by announcing this service a week before the conference.

VMware vCloud gives users the ability to use templates to deploy ready-made operating systems and applications, and with vCloud Connector, users can move VMs, vApps, and templates to and from their on-premises data centers and their vCloud Powered Services. These technologies allow users to create a secure hybrid cloud environment.

Virtualization has become an integral component of cloud computing and some would argue VMware has the inside track on the virtualization market. Nevertheless, companies like HP, IBM, Microsoft and others all have competing products.

The vCloud Service Evaluation is a public Beta program. Customers who sign up will be notified via email when there is a spot available to give it a try.