If you are like me or many of VMware customers who has been following the VMware Hybrid Cloud Story closely for a while, you have probably asked yourself or your sales rep when will you be able to move your Virtual Machines back and forth between On Premise (Private Cloud) to vCloud Air (VMware Public Cloud) without encountering downtime. Many of us are used to the concept of VMotion and being able to move our VMs across hosts within a site and in vSphere 6 we had the capability to move VMs across sites and vCenters.

The next logical step in that vMotion evolution is being able to vMotion VMs to the Cloud and back, and that is just what VMware has announced at VMworld today. In fact, a live demonstration of what is called Cross-Cloud vMotion was shown during today VMworld General session. This exciting news has been a part of  Technology Preview of Project SkyScraper, a new set of hybrid cloud capabilities for VMware vSphere that will enable customers to confidently extend their data center to the public cloud and vice-a-versa by seamlessly operating across boundaries while providing enterprise-level security and business continuity.

Below is the two features of Project SkyScraper that was shared today at VMworld:

• Cross-Cloud vMotion is a new technology based on vSphere vMotion that allows customers to seamlessly migrate running virtual machines between their on-premises environments and vCloud Air. Cross-cloud vMotion can be used via the vSphere Web Client, enabling rapid adoption with minimal training. The flexibility provided by this technology gives customers the ability to securely migrate virtual machines bi-directionally without compromising machine up-time; all vMotion guarantees are maintained.
• Content Sync will allow customers to subscribe to an on-premise Content Library and seamlessly synchronize VM templates, vApps, ISOs, and scripts with their content catalog in vCloud Air with a single click of a button. This feature will ensure consistency of content between on-premise and the cloud, eliminating error prone manual sync process.

These features will complement VMware vCloud® Air™ Hybrid Cloud Manager™ – a free, downloadable solution for vSphere Web Client users, with optional fee-based capabilities. Hybrid Cloud Manager consolidates various capabilities such as workload migration, network extension and improved hybrid management features into one easy-to-use solution for managing workloads in vCloud Air from the vSphere Web Client.

Learn more about these two capabilities under Project Skyscraper by visiting the VMware booth at VMworld 2015 if you are at VMworld, else reach out to your account team to setup a roadmap discussion.