MUMBAI, INDIA: VMware Inc., a provider of virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacentre and to the cloud, introduced VMware vCloud Express, a new class of service that will deliver reliable, on-demand, pay-as-you go compute as a service, at the VMworld 2009.

Built on the industry’s leading and most complete virtualization platform, VMware vSphere, VMware vCloud Express will enable customers to start with VMware vCloud Express and grow into full enterprise-class cloud environments with highly available and service level guarantees when they are ready to move into production.  

Unlike other on-demand cloud solutions, VMware vCloud Express will give developers quick access to a pay-as-you-go infrastructure that is compatible with in-house VMware virtualized IT environments—making the interoperability and portability of applications from external development to internal deployment easy.

VMware vCloud Express will be available through service providers including Terremark, BlueLock, Hosting.com, Logica, and Melbourne IT.  These service providers are launching beta releases of their services today.

VMware vCloud API
VMware also announced VMware vCloud API also.

Many leading software companies are building on the VMware vCloud API to deliver cloud-ready services including Aptana, Cloudera, CollabNet, CohesiveFT, EngineYard, ParAccel, RightScale, rPath, SpringSource, Terracotta, TIBCO, and Zend.

Amr Awadallah, founder and chief technology officer, Cloudera, Inc., said: "Manually configuring and deploying large distributed systems like Apache Hadoop for the cloud can be a real challenge. Using VMware's vCloud APIs, we are able to provide a pre-configured environment with Cloudera's Distribution for Hadoop, which can be deployed elastically over a dynamic number of nodes. Furthermore, the combination of VMware vCloud API and VMware’s industry-leading virtualization platform, allows transparent deployment to both internal and/or external clouds without requiring any system changes.”

The VMware vCloud API enables application vendors, service providers and enterprise IT with an interface that simplifies how applications are deployed and managed in cloud environments, whether internal or external. The VMware vCloud API is both REST-based and internet-enabled to enable simplicity in deploying, managing and migrating workloads between clouds. 

The VMware vCloud API will be openly available and has been submitted to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) building on VMware’s commitment to open standards and customer choice.