Microsoft Corp. this morning announced that it has inked an agreement to acquire Avere Systems Inc., a hybrid cloud provider focused on helping enterprises better use cloud infrastructure.

Pittsburgh-based Avere sells software and appliances that enable companies to link their on-premises hardware with a public cloud deployment. According to the provider, its technology can be used to offload workloads to an infrastructure-as-a-service platform for cost savings or as a way of freeing up capacity. Data is moved in such a way that it remains easily accessible for the applications that stay behind in an organization’s internal environment.

Ron Bianchini, Avere’s chief executive officer, broke down the value proposition in a March interview on SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE. “We’re helping customers adopt cloud in two ways,” he said. “We support the gateway model, where you can keep your compute on-premise and put your bulk storage in the cloud. We enable that model without seeing any change in performance or availability.”

Bianchini added that the company also does the reverse. “We enable customers to put their compute in the cloud, and now the capacity can be in the cloud or on-premises,” he said. That means cloud applications gain the ability to access information kept in an organization’s private data center.

Aver supports Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, as well as Microsoft’s Azure. Bianchini wrote in a blog post today that customers can expect closer integration with the latter platform to be added after the acquisition completes. 

Bringing Avere’s technology into the fold should help Microsoft better target organizations that would potentially be interested in using Azure but can’t simply “lift and shift” their workloads. A government agency, for example, may need to keep certain sensitive information in-house because of security concerns. Many large enterprises have similar considerations. 

Microsoft didn’t go into detail about its plans for Avere, including the terms of the deal. However, a spokesperson did tell GeekWire that the company will continue to support AWS and Google Cloud Platform, which should be a relief to existing customers.

Notable users of Avere’s technology include Sony Corp.’s entertainment division, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and John Hopkins University. All these customer accounts are poised to move over to Microsoft as well in the wake of the acquisition.

Here’s theCUBE host Stu Miniman’s full interview with Bianchini from March:

Image: SiliconANGLE