We have had tons of interest in our VMware virtualization on Azure offering. This includes questions about what we are offering and how we will provide an enterprise grade solution. Here are some of the details on the preview.

To enable this solution, we are working with multiple VMware Cloud Provider Program partners and running on existing VMware-certified hardware. For example, our preview hardware will use a flexpod bare metal configuration with NetApp storage. This hosted solution is similar to Azure's bare metal SAP HANA Large Instances solution that we launched last year. With this approach, we will enable you to use the same industry-leading VMware software and services that you currently use in your on-premises datacenters, but running on Azure infrastructure, allowing L3 network connectivity for existing applications to Azure-native services like Azure Active Directory, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Functions.

We are facilitating discussions with VMware and the VCPP partners to ensure you have a great solution and a great support experience when we make this offering generally available next year. More details from VMware on this can be found here. We will share more information on GA plans and partners in the coming months. If you’d like to participate in this preview, please contact your Microsoft sales representative.

Thanks,

Corey