VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced the expansion of VMware vCloud Air in Europe with the general availability of service in Frankfurt, Germany.

Complementing VMware's UK location and the vCloud Air Network of service providers, the new VMware-operated German data center provides customers with a Central European location that helps to address German and EU compliance and data protection regulations, while enabling them to take advantage of VMware's enterprise-class cloud.

"The continued expansion of VMware vCloud Air in Central Europe marks another major milestone in the global build out of our hybrid cloud service, bringing benefits to our customers through fast and easy access to the public cloud while reducing operating costs and providing compliance with local data protection regulations," said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. "VMware's new Frankfurt service location enables IT teams, developers and lines of business to take full advantage of an enterprise-class public cloud service that is local and fully compliant with local data protection regulations."

"We know that when it comes to the cloud, trust remains the ultimate human currency," said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP SE. "I congratulate VMware on the expansion of vCloud Air in Europe and I'm pleased that SAP is a proud partner and user of VMware solutions. VMware's commitment to the German marketplace creates a compelling opportunity for customers to leverage hybrid cloud services in support of a business growth agenda."

Hybrid Cloud Strategy is Business Critical
A recent IDC study commissioned by VMware revealed that a majority of IT decision makers in Germany (67 percent) describe their organization's current or planned cloud strategy as hybrid.

VMware vCloud Air can integrate seamlessly with a company's current IT infrastructure, giving the ease and flexibility to extend applications into the public cloud as and when additional capacity is needed. The resulting hybrid cloud is compatible with existing enterprise applications, and also makes it easy to build new cloud-native applications, delivering businesses greater agility and efficiency in a more secure, reliable and compliant manner. IT departments can view, manage and operate this "best of both worlds" cloud environment in a unified way using the VMware vSphere® platform they already know and trust.

The same study also revealed that 65 percent of the IT decision makers in Germany consider a hybrid cloud environment as critical in helping their organization achieve its business goals and compete effectively in 2020.

The new VMware vCloud Air location in Frankfurt can enable customers to store their data at a location that addresses German and EU compliance and data protection standards. In addition, the general availability of vCloud Air in Germany further demonstrates VMware's commitment to support customers through the global expansion of its enterprise-class public cloud service.

VMware's Hybrid Cloud Provides Opportunities for Partners
With vCloud Air, channel and service provider partners play a key role integrating private data centers and public clouds and delivering hybrid solutions to customers. VMware vCloud Air was designed specifically with the channel community in mind. VMware distributors, solution providers and OEM partners sell vCloud Air the same way as any other VMware product.

"We have observed an increasing demand for a flexible and secure hybrid cloud platform among German and European customers -- with the requirement that their data is hosted in Germany," says Michael Fluegge, Director, Datacenter Sales at Computacenter. "The location of the cloud provider is one of the key criteria when selecting a suitable cloud provider. As a longstanding VMware partner, Computacenter is very excited about the new vCloud Air service location in Germany as we are now able to meet the requirements of our customers by providing them with a public cloud service from a leading global provider while considering local regulations for data protection, data security and data sovereignty."

VMware plans to make additional cloud services available from this location in 2015, including an initial set Google Cloud Platform services as announced earlier this year. Additional information on how to quickly get up and running on VMware vCloud Air can be found at VMware.com.