When VMware Cloud on AWS was officially rolled out in August, the initial availability was only in the Western part of the U.S. Last week, the companies added the Eastern region and announced several new enhancements, including features for scale and recovery.

The partnership between the two major cloud technology providers is further evidence that both companies are dedicated to supporting a hybrid cloud computing world. “We’re the king of the private cloud, and [Amazon Web Service Inc.’s] the king of the public cloud,” said Sanjay Poonen (pictured), chief operating officer of VMware Inc. “When you can bring these things together, you don’t have to make it a choice between one and the other.”

Poonen stopped by the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with host John Furrier (@furrier) and guest host Keith Townsend (@CTOAdvisor) during the recent AWS re:Invent event in Las Vegas. They discussed recent enhancements in support of VMware on AWS, cybersecurity and acquisition activity in the analytics space.

Enhancements on AWS

Last week’s news from VMware included an expansion of the number of virtual machines that can be supported on AWS, from several hundred initially to tens of thousands in the coming months for one enterprise customer. The company also added a cloud service site recovery product so that if a data center goes down, applications will continue to run on AWS.

The latest announcements underscore VMware’s concerted approach to be equally influential in data center and public cloud technologies. “The key thing that kept us awake the last couple of years was how to make that relevant to the other side of history, which is the public cloud,” Poonen said.

There are also signs that VMware intends to continue bolstering its security portfolio in response to enterprise customer concerns surrounding high-profile corporate breaches. One recent report indicated that VMware has engaged in acquisition talks with several cybersecurity companies and the company has taken steps over the past year to integrate its NSX, AirWatch and AppDefense tools into endpoint security solutions.

“Our point of view is that security needs to be baked into the infrastructure, and we’re going to do that,” Poonen said.

VMware’s acquisition strategy may also soon play out on another front, this time involving analytics. In May, the company acquired both Apteligent, a mobile insights platform, and Wavefront, a real-time metrics and streaming data business.

“You’re going to see a couple of these moves that are the breadcrumbs of what we’ll start announcing regarding a comprehensive analytics strategy in 2018,” Poonen said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent.

Photo: SiliconANGLE