CenturyLink Deepens Ties to VMWare

CenturyLink, Inc. today announced that it has expanded its global strategic collaboration with VMware to deepen the level of software-defined data center technologies (SDDCs) available to enterprise customers. This collaboration will preserve and enhance customer investments in local data centers and extend critical workloads and applications to the cloud. Guests can also use VMware technology with CenturyLink's portfolio of network solutions, hosting management and cloud.

"More and more companies are looking for service providers' expertise in managing public and private cloud solutions across diverse hybrid computing models," said Bill Corbin, vice president of strategic partnering and channel partnerships, CenturyLink. "The expansion of our long-standing relationship with VMware is beneficial to our customers through further enhancements to our cloud portfolio with greater integration of VMware technology."

CenturyLink and VMware have brought innovative solutions to the market to benefit business customers:

•     Cloud CenturyLink is one of the largest multi-user cloud environments in VMware vSphere in the world, offering performance, usage, connectivity and management organizations benefits.
•     Dedicated cloud computing service CenturyLink is one of the largest vSphere-based private cloud services in the world, enabling modular scalability and architectural flexibility for customers seeking a secure and auditable infrastructure that can be tailored to the Loads working as SAP. This service will soon include Data Center Software Defined-based Technology (SDDC) NSX VMware, VMware VSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation.
•     CenturyLink includes VMware vCloud Air as part of its multi-cloud offering since its launch in 2013.
•     CenturyLink's ElasticBox application management framework includes adapters for VMware vCenter ™, vCloud Director vCloud and air, enabling customers to receive CenturyLink services wherever they need them.
•     CenturyLink public and private cloud service offerings will provide a demonstration platform in the cloud ecosystem VMware vCloud Air Network.

"As business leaders chart a path to the cloud, they want simplicity, security, and choice of how they consume and leverage IT services," said Geoff Waters, vice president, Global Service Provider for VMware Channel. "With a strong set of organizations using VMware technologies, customers can further benefit from CenturyLink's experience in building, managing and securing cloud environments through critical workloads, hybrid infrastructure critical network links .