Microsoft increases hybrid cloud play with Avere deal
By
Nick Wakeman
Microsoft has increased its hybrid cloud capabilities with the purchase of Avere Systems and its storage management technology.
A year or even six months ago, I’d ignore the news of Microsoft buying a cloud technology startup.
But news from the commercial world is becoming more relevant in the public sector as the government increasingly turns to cloud service providers for new solutions.
So Microsoft’s acquisition of Avere Systems is news that is worth noting.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Avere’s technologies is used to enable hybrid cloud environments, mostly with data storage solutions designed to work with on premises storage as well as cloud-based storage. The company was founded in 2008 and received an investment from Google last year.
The technologies are also used for cloud accessibility, cloud migration, data center consolidation, data analytics, caching and storage performance optimization.
Hybrid has become the "de facto" cloud environment because no one is going to put everything in the cloud or even into a single cloud. A lot of things will be kept in-house and some things will reside with different cloud provider infrastructures. And you have to be able to move from one infrastructure to another seamlessly.
That’s how it is in the commercial world and that’s how it will be in the government market.
Avere also isn’t a stranger to the government. It is an Amazon Web Services partner on AWS' government community cloud. Avere is available on several GWAC contracts through partnerships with prime contractors, according to its website.
The company storage solution also is FIPS 140-2 compliant.
For Microsoft, the investment in Avere shows its continued commitment to enable hybrid cloud solutions.
The company in particular is targeting high performance cloud workloads, according to a blog post by Microsoft Azure Corporate Vice President Jason Zander.
“The need for high-performance storage and the flexibility to store and process data where it makes the most sense for the business is critically important,” he wrote.
This will play well in the government market, where agencies are increasingly looking for ways to leverage big data analytics and other solutions that require a lot of computing power.
It will also be interesting to see what happens to Avere’s partnership with AWS, given its rivalry with Microsoft. But that will play out in time.