AWS Channel Leader Terry Wise: Amazon RDS On VMware 'Creates More Opportunity' And 'Choice' For Partners

Amazon is arming VMware partners with its database-agnostic Relational Database Service (RDS) that allows them to easily set up, operate and scale databases in VMware-based environments that are on-premises or on the Amazon Web Services public cloud.

"We're taking native AWS services and extending it to the VMware environments. So it creates tighter integration and more opportunity for partners," said Terry Wise, vice president of global alliances, channels and ecosystem for AWS, in an interview with CRN. "It gives partners choice. This opens up so many doors for partners to really say, 'Hey, now I have a solution that is agnostic to database platforms that I can go and monetize on.''

Amazon RDS allows VMware partners to manage Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and MySQL databases in their customers’ software-defined data centers and hybrid cloud environments.

RDS automates database management regardless of where the database is deployed, which frees up VMware customers to develop and deploy new applications, said Wise. "So if you think about the opportunity to just build and deploy new applications in a cloud world for all of these customers, it really does extend the business opportunity for our partners and certainly the landscape for our customers," he said.

[Related: 6 Key VMware Cloud On AWS Features Launched At VMworld 2018]

John Drake, vice president of alliances at Faction, a Denver-based VMware partner, said RDS is going to be "huge" for his company's business.

"The idea that we can run a really great database in a lot of different places is going to be huge for us,” said Drake in an interview with CRN. "Being able to run RDS in more places, run RDS on top of VMware and being able to bring that into the ecosystem -- you have a lot more options as to where you can run databases and how you can interact with them and how you can interact with that data. That's going to give us a lot more ability to tie customers into that infrastructure."

RDS on VMware automates database provisioning, operating system and database patching, backup, point-in-time restore, storage and compute scaling, instance health monitoring, and failover. The solution manages databases from ground to cloud, enabling access to AWS through a single interface.

The new technology partnership was unveiled at VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas this week, with VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger taking the stage with AWS CEO Andy Jassy.

"Managing the administrative and operational muck of databases is hard work, error-prone and resource- intensive," said Jassy. "It's why hundreds of thousands of customers trust Amazon RDS to manage their databases at scale. We're excited to bring this same operationally battle-tested service to VMware customers' on-premises and hybrid environments, which will not only make database management much easier for enterprises, but also make it simpler for these databases to transition to the cloud."

Amazon RDS on VMware will become available to partners in the coming months.