VMware to comply with Indian government's demand to localise data

Enterprise software major VMware has said it is prepared to comply with India's data localisation requirements, as the country works on rules requiring data generated locally to be stored within its borders.

The US-based company, which had reported revenue of $7.9 billion, has partnered with Amazon to provide VMware-based public cloud services through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Its senior executives said the company has no objection to complying with local regulations in markets where it operates.

"We don't go into a country with the idea of taking advantage of local laws. In general, we have to watch them and conform to them," Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer of Customer Operations at VMware, told a group of Indian journalists attending VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas.

An Indian government-appointed panel was working on guidelines concerning the storage and handling of data generated within the country. VMware executives said the company could operate its services in a manner that keeps customer data within the relevant region rather than transferring it overseas.

Rajiv Ramaswami, VMware's Chief Operating Officer for Products and Cloud Services, said the company would provide authorities with information required under applicable regulations.

VMware's role, he explained, includes helping major cloud providers address governance, compliance and security requirements while designing their services. If local laws require cloud operators to provide certain information, the company would comply with those requirements.

Poonen, who was born in Kerala, said India and China were among the important markets for VMware. The company also had its largest research and development centre in Bengaluru, where teams were working on products and technologies for the global market.

He said VMware expected its workforce in India to expand as the country's technology and cloud sectors continued to grow.

"We think there's a very big opportunity unfolding in India and it is a logical place for AWS and VMware to be in," Poonen said.

He also argued that Indian businesses should reconsider maintaining private cloud infrastructure solely for disaster recovery when public cloud alternatives could provide the same services more efficiently and at lower cost.

Poonen said India was undergoing rapid digitisation and that the government was showing strong interest in attracting investments from global technology companies. He said he had met Indian ministers and senior bureaucrats who were enthusiastic about bringing more technology investment into the country.

At the same time, he identified bureaucracy and corruption as challenges that companies seeking to expand in India needed to navigate.

VMware's partnership with AWS was still relatively new at the time, Poonen said, but the company had chosen to work with a leading player in the public cloud market. He added that VMware could explore partnerships with other major providers in the future, including Microsoft, Google and IBM.

The company was also keeping an eye on China's Alibaba, although no concrete partnership had been finalised at that point.

Ramaswami said demand for VMware and AWS cloud services in India was still at an early stage, but businesses were increasingly moving towards virtualisation and public and hybrid cloud environments.

Large organisations such as State Bank of India, Bharti Airtel and BookMyShow were among those seen as being ahead in cloud adoption, while wider adoption was expected to gather pace.

VMware also highlighted its "Workspace ONE" platform, which brings together desktop, laptop and mobile device management with application access and security controls.

Ramaswami said the company believed it had an advantage in desktop virtualisation because its platform offered an integrated approach rather than separate solutions for individual devices.

"We are leading the workspace journey here. We see very good opportunity in India where customers are into desktop virtualisation or mobile management, not both," he said.

The company also expected its parent group, Dell Technologies, to integrate Workspace ONE into its computers in the future, potentially making it easier for enterprise customers to deploy and manage applications and devices across their organisations.

Overall, VMware saw India's expanding digital economy, growing cloud adoption and increasing focus on data governance as significant opportunities for its enterprise technology business.