Google Adds Elastifile to Cloud Storage Mix

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Since assuming command at Google Cloud last fall, Thomas Kurian has aggressively pursued acquisitions designed to help differentiate its services as customers roll out their multi-cloud strategies.

The ex-Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) executive followed up last month’s deal for visualization tool vendor Looker with the acquisition this week of cloud storage specialist Elastafile. Kurian said Tuesday (July 9) the acquisition is expected to close by the end of the year.

Other specifics of the deal were not disclosed.

Along with providing consistent file storage, Kurian noted that developers embracing tools such as the Kubernetes cluster orchestrator require robust file storage for stateful workloads requiring backup storage.

“As these critical applications migrate to the cloud, IT teams need simple, natively compatible storage options along with the features and performance to support them,” Kurian noted in a blog post announcing the Elastafile acquisition.

Launched in 2013, Elastafile emerged from stealth mode in 2017 with a “cross-cloud data fabric” targeting the migration of workloads to the cloud. Among the startup’s goals is allowing infrastructure architects and data analysts to independently provision storage and computing resources, allowing them to move production workloads into stateful applications containers delivering integrated analytics and high-end network-attached storage use cases.

Elastifile’s Cloud File System is a flash-native, software-defined platform designed to allow users to move data and applications readily between on- and off-premises environments, delivering, in its words, “hyperscale efficiency to enterprises and cloud service providers.”

Google’s Kurian said the addition of Elastifile’s system would accelerate the migration of traditional workloads to Google Cloud while simplifying scaling and management of big data and computing-intensive workloads such as machine learning.

The combination would allow Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) customers “to build industry-specific, high performance applications that need petabyte-scale file storage more quickly and easily,” Kurian added.

Elastifile launched a file service on Google Cloud earlier this year as a managed service. The new service has attracted several large customers currently in the process of shifting applications to the cloud.

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