ZeroStack integrated its Intelligent Cloud Platform with Nimble Storage’s storage systems to create a private cloud for enterprises.

ZeroStack’s ambition is to make it easier for enterprise customers to build a private cloud than to adopt a hybrid or public cloud approach.

ZeroStack’s Cloud Platform can now use Nimble as back-end storage. Enterprise users can simply plug the Nimble Storage devices into the ZeroStack platform, ZeroStack asserts, to build a high performing cloud for application development, running packaged enterprise applications and hosting.

Integrating with Nimble Storage has the potential to vastly expand ZeroStack’s market. Nimble Storage, founded in 2008, claims over 9,000 customers. ZeroStack, a startup, ended 2016 with 10.

The integration allows Nimble Storage customers to opt for a private cloud using resources they’ve already invested in. “You can’t tell people they have to start clean. Instead, we can say, ‘oh, you have Nimble? Okay, then…,’” ZeroStack Marketing Vice President Steve Garrison told SDxCentral.

ZeroStack’s cloud platform includes an operating system and software backed by artificial intelligence. Importantly, Garrison noted, it has a portal designed to match the ease-of-use that Amazon’s portal gives to AWS. “Why not give everyone a similar portal – a software-as-a-service portal?” Garrison said. “SaaSify it.”

ZeroStack said other advantages of the combined solution include:

  • Nimble Storage’s features, such as cross-site replication with end-to-end encryption and application-level policies under which applications like Oracle or SQL Server, which are specifically tuned to run on Nimble Storage with the highest performance.
  • ZeroStack users can leverage Nimble’s QoS and Dedupe capabilities for overall storage efficiencies.

Gary O’Neal, VP of alliances at Nimble Storage, said in a statement, “Our predictive flash storage solutions give our customers the storage agility they need, and ZeroStack’s cloud platform extends storage into the cloud for self-service use on a self-healing infrastructure.”

Both Nimble Storage and ZeroStack will market the combined solution to their customers and resellers.

ZeroStack already has a deal to have its private cloud software running on hyperconverged hardware from Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). And Garrison said the company is negotiating with three others now, and it will no doubt talk with other potential partners beyond those.

ZeroStack and Nimble also share a connection with HPE, which announced earlier this month that it's buying Nimble Storage.