Zoho has entered into a relationship with VMware, giving customers the ability to run Zoho applications in their own data centers by way of the VMware platform. Most users of Zoho applications access them through the vendor's data centers under a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. But Zoho also does on-site deployments for larger companies that want to run the software on their own premises, behind their firewalls. Previously, Zoho offered only a single hardware configuration for that purpose. The new relationship allows Zoho to deliver apps that help customers to build internal SaaS "clouds" with Zoho applications, through the VMware platforms they are already using. The VMware platform minimizes the hardware limitations of the Zoho rack while increasing the availability, resilience and flexibility of the underlying infrastructure, the vendor said. Customers wishing to execute their Zoho applications locally will now have the choice of running them on their internal systems based on VMware vSphere 4, which runs on a broad range of hardware and is widely deployed by companies today.
