Elastifile expands AWS relationship in further development of hybrid cloud strategy

Elastifile’s certification as an APN Technology Partner facilitates their offering native AWS deployments, and strengthens their already blossoming business with AWS customers.

Sebastiano Tevarotto, Elastifile’s President and General Manager

Santa Clara CA-based hybrid cloud data management vendor Elastifile has announced an expansion of their relationship with AWS, part of their strategy of significantly expanding their presence around hybrid clouds, which provides a next-generation data management and storage solution across true hybrid cloud workflows. Elastifile has announced that they have been certified as an Amazon Partner Network (APN) Technology Partner.

The company formally emerged from stealth in April.

“We met with our customers and partners who do business with AWS and looked for ways to help them,” said Sebastiano Tevarotto, Elastifile’s President and General Manager. “Elastifile has a growing customer base around AWS and is being increasingly considered by large customers for significant products – both in terms of importance, and income potential. We are in very interesting pursuits with joint prospects.”

Tevarotto said that while they have been working closely with AWS around these deals, the certification moves them from the high technical level relationship that had existed to a formal validation.

“It also facilitates the offering of  support for native AWS deployments,” he indicated. As a full APN Technology Partner, Elastifile’s software-defined data infrastructure now integrates with AWS to permit management of dynamic workloads with linear scale-out POSIX file services. Elastifile also integrates S3 object tiering and leverages advanced data reduction to implement efficient, self-service file check-in and check-out between active and inactive data tiers.

Elastifile is not placing its bet solely on AWS, but is pursuing similar status with all the major cloud providers.

“We have made it very clear that our value proposition lies in cross cloud-capability,” Tevarotto said. “We see Google Azure and AWS as critical in our go-to-market strategy as well. We are working with all three, and the intention is that we will be available in all three at the same level that we are now with AWS.

“It’s the fastest way for us to grow our business,” Tevarotto continued. “We don’t intend to pit them against each other. We want to make sure that customers have the best capabilities. They also do not want to be locked into one cloud. In some cases, like Europe, that’s mandated by regulators. In the U.S., it’s more an issue of customer preference. But it’s very clear. Customers do  not want to be locked in.”

Tevarotto said that Elastifile’s strategy here is complemented by the cloud companies’ clear attempts to differentiate themselves from each other.

“Google is trying to differentiate on accelerating machine learning,” he said “AWS focuses on elasticity and adding services.  Azure’s emphasis is on being a true enterprise vendor and adding value to Microsoft’s own applications. All of these strategies are very legitimate. It creates a competitive market. It’s good for us. It’s good for the channel. It’s good for customers.”

Andy Fenselau, Elastifile’s VP of Marketing

Elastifile says that their ability to enhance cross-cloud workflows lifts all boats in a cloud world where everyone has been talking hybrid cloud, but where the reality has been rather less than the promise.

“It is very practical, and it is entirely customer driven,” said Andy Fenselau, Elastifile’s VP of Marketing. “Customers want to do more with hybrid clouds. They want true hybrid clouds. But hybrid clouds have been static, with some apps being mapped to the cloud, and some staying on-prem. We want to blow that up – with bursting, with follow-the-sun dev/ops, and with different clouds in different locations. The mix of active and inactive data storage that we bring together facilitates that.”

That’s a message that should resonate with the channel, Fenselau stressed.

“We believe that the channel partner’s value is to help the customer get to the point where it doesn’t matter if a service is delivered on-prem or in the cloud, so that they can fully leverage the value of all the options they have,” he said.

Elastifile is demonstrating its data fabric for dynamic cross-cloud workload migration at AWS re:Invent, at booth 1040.