VMware and Equinix introduced a joint distributed cloud service that combines VMware-managed cloud infrastructure services and Equinix's bare metal service. The move is targeted at enterprise customers with distributed metro cloud environments that require business-critical performance at the edge.

Enterprises need high performing infrastructure that's connected to private networks and public clouds to move their data heavy workloads to a cloud-first operating model, Equinix's Global Head of Edge Infrastructure Services Zachary Smith told a group of reporters.

VMware Cloud on Equinix Metal aims to bring "cloud-style experiences" to Equinix's metro locations. The digital infrastructure provider is active in more than 240 data centers in 71 major metro areas globally and boasts thousands of clouds and networks across its "ecosystem-dense locations," Smith said.

Enterprises want access to those locations across the world where their latency-sensitive and high-performance workloads reside, but "with the ease and consumptive model of VMware Cloud," he explained.

The magic of this service really happens at the edge, where the two partners are helping thousands of enterprises and service providers connect. "This is where people can really access that mission critical, data heavy workload in our metro locations and interconnect it across to their cloud workloads, to their on-prem, into the rest of their ecosystem partners, and ... with an operating model that they're very comfortable with," Smith said.

To that point, this joint service works to preserve "that single tenant, very well-known location specific assurance they're used to in an on-prem world, but in a fully operated manner."

Ideal use cases for the new service include distributed cloud environments like smart cities, video analytics, game development, real-time financial market trading, retail point of sale, and other IoT and machine learning (ML)/inferencing use cases.

IDC Research VP of Cloud and Edge Infrastructure Services Dave McCarthy explained that enterprise customers have traditionally lacked a cloud that combines on-premises security with high performance, data locality, and low total cost of ownership (TCO). This made the default strategy to retain workloads on-premises while performing real-time tasks like data processing at branch office or metro locations.

The built-in private connectivity of this distributed cloud service targets multicloud flexibility and choice by providing an instant connection to any public cloud service. "With their combined strengths, Equinix and VMware are well positioned to deliver a distributed cloud service that will address the demands of enterprise applications where latency, performance, security, and data locality are key drivers," McCarthy said.

"Customers benefit from secure connections to their critical private or on-prem environments and also to the  thousands of clouds, networks, and other ecosystem participants that come together at Equinix," Smith added.

While this service is marketed as a single offering, enterprise customers will need to purchase the VMware Cloud SaaS from VMware and the bare metal service separately from Equinix.