Vcinity offers a unique solution in the marketplace which doesn’t move data to the cloud, but provides the same effect while allowing the data to remain in place.

San Jose-based Vcinity, which makes a a turnkey hybrid cloud solution that allows data to be ‘moved’ to the cloud without having to actually be moved, has announced a new collaboration with Dell’s OEM Engineered Solutions program. The deal will let customers purchase the Vcinity solution on Dell servers through their existing Dell contracts.

Vcinity is nominally a 2018 startup, but is actually a continuation of Bay Microsystems, a company whose history goes back to early in the century

“Bay was an ASIC company, which was very specific around US intelligence and defence agencies, and evolved into some systems from that,” said Harry Carr, CEO of Vcinity. “Vcinity was formed to acquire Bay, with the idea being to take their technology and figure out how to commercialize it.”

Carr noted that initially Vcinity was focused just on data movement.

“There were many companies who already moved data, so we focused on what we could do that was different,” he said. “It was an evolution trying to understand what customers were trying to accomplish and what their challenges were. Our customers were large and geographically dispersed, and we decided not to move it fast, but to do something different. So we experimented to do this, and focused not on moving data, but just using it in place. Our technology allows applications somewhere to operate and execute on data somewhere else physically distant from where the application sits. When we launched this in 2018 at the Gartner Symposium, some said we were defying the laws of physics – but it works.”

Carr said that they are presently unique in the way that they approach the problem.

“There is no head-to-head competitor that we know of,” he said. “What there is instead is some form of file movement – extreme file transfer, WAN optimizers, and pre-cachers like Nasuni, Panzura and Hammerspace. None of them let you operate on the data at distance.”

The deal with Dell covers Dell servers, and integrates Vcinity’s hybrid cloud software with them to deliver a turnkey solution to customers through Dell’s OEM Engineered Solutions program,” Carr said.

“This came about because one of our guys that we hired had worked through this program before,” Carr said. “He introduced us to the folks involved and we put a full court press on built the relationship. The initial SKUs are focused on software and Dell servers and hopefully there is more to come. Nothing brings together these types of deals like large real customers.”

Carr indicated that the relationship has already led to sales.

“We have already won our first two deals through the Dell relationship,” he noted. “These are smaller deals initially at very large companies, but we expect to land and expand.”

Carr said this is a significant addition to the Dell portfolio because it allows them to use applications sitting in the cloud on data that is not resident in the same location.

“We have given them the capability to say to their customers that they can take advantage of the cloud without having to move their data,” he pointed out. “It also lets Dell think about how it adds to the cloud business, as opposed to seeing a potential threat to their business.”

While Dell has prioritized moving towards making its offerings available as a service through its APEX service, the Vcinity solution is not available for consumption in that model today – but very well could be going forward.

“A small company like us will pursue any option that makes sense,” Carr said. “We do add a lot of capability for the connected enterprise. If you don’t interact effectively with the core, all you have is a disconnected edge.”

This kind of deal typically provides strong benefits to the small company in terms of increased visibility. Dell’s early partnership with Nutanix for example, played a key role in raising that company’s profile.

“We expect both financial and visibility advantages from this,” Carr stated. “Dell doesn’t just throw you into their OEM program unless they see the possibility of a large amount of revenue. But hopefully it is also viewed as a validation. Dell has existing relationships and valid agreements. I don’t know how much longer it would have taken for us to close the deals independently. Dell certainly gives us an accelerated sales cycle. They will likely have a multiplier of 2×3 times as us in these deals, and we can help them make their numbers.”

Looking forward, Carr is hopeful of an expansion of the partnership beyond servers.

“Hopefully, there is lots more to come,” he said. “This is related to just a portion of what Dell offers customers and we hope to work with them more broadly going forward.”