Google is making its Google Anthos hybrid and multicloud application platform easier to use by offering up a selection of vendors that have created Anthos-ready data storage systems for customers seeking prequalified products for their data-storage infrastructures.

The first Anthos Ready Storage offerings are available immediately for on-premises use from partners including Dell EMC, HPE, NetApp, Portworx, Pure Storage and Robin.io, according to a Feb. 18 Google Cloud Blog by Rayn Veerubhotla, director of partnerships for Google Cloud, and by Manu Batra, a Google Cloud product manager. More products and services will be added in the future as more vendors participate.

All qualified Anthos Ready Storage products recognize partner product packages that meet a core set of requirements to run optimally with Anthos running on premises, according to Google, while also helping organizations select storage products that can work with Anthos.

The Anthos Ready Storage partners have met multiple criteria for the products, such as demonstrated core Kubernetes functionality including dynamic provisioning of volumes via open and portable Kubernetes-native storage APIs; the ability to automatically manage storage across cluster scale-up and scale-down scenarios; and a simplified deployment experience using Kubernetes practices.

Anthos launched last June as an open application platform that can be used to build and manage applications across all types of environments and infrastructure – specifically for hybrid and multicloud environments – using containers and Kubernetes. Anthos enables users to modernize existing applications and build new ones, which can be run securely anywhere. Built on several Google-created open source technologies, such as Kubernetes, Istio, and Knative, Anthos enables consistency between on-premises and cloud environments and helps accelerate application development, according to Google.

Google Cloud’s Manu Batra

“To date, we have seen an extremely enthusiastic response from customers and partners to run key workloads on the Anthos platform,” Batra told Channel Futures. “As customers leverage Anthos in new and exciting ways, one of the key requests is for recommendations on storage infrastructure.”

That’s how the Anthos Ready Storage initiative got started, said Batra. The qualification process and criteria for the program validates partner CSI drivers for critical storage functions such as dynamic functionality and scale up-scale down scenarios with Anthos, which are critical containerized stateful workloads, he explained.

“Customers who are leveraging Anthos on premises can now select these storage solutions that are deployed with Anthos to better manage their data across hybrid and multicloud environments,” he said.

The key components of Anthos are Google-managed Kubernetes, service mesh, a marketplace for applications and configuration management, all of which can run on premises and on Google Cloud, said Batra. Anthos, which is centrally managed from Google Cloud, also can be used to manage clusters and services on other cloud platforms. Applications that run on Anthos can be deployed, operated and moved seamlessly across environments without the need for code changes, he said.

As customers continued to ask for storage for their Anthos projects, Google worked with several storage partners to make it happen, said Batra.

“We are constantly talking to our customers and learning about their evolving needs,” he said. “As customers are looking to deploy stateful applications and data infrastructure has become a critical requirement, we will continue to innovate to meet their requirements.”

The new Google Anthos storage qualification program should be helpful for channel partners and for their customers, several IT analysts told Channel Futures.

“Google has an impressive list of vendors initially supporting Anthos Ready Storage,” said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT. “In addition, the company’s pledge that Anthos will support customers’ workloads running on other public clouds is more evidence – if any were needed – that hybrid multicloud is the approach preferred by enterprises and other cloud customers.”

Successful cloud providers are adapting their platforms to run wherever customers are conducting their business, as shown in this move by Google, said King.

“This announcement suggests that despite any short term challenges – including the recently announced reorganization of its cloud group – Google is doing what it takes to give customers what they want and require,” said King.

Viewpoint Research’s Cyndi Privett

Another analyst, Cyndi Privett of Viewpoint Research, said the Google move serves partners well.

“These collaborations maximize choice for channel partners wanting to serve their customers operating both on premises and off,” she said. “It’s particularly compelling for solution providers that have been developing container-based applications as part of their overall solution.”

Greg Schulz, principal analyst with StorageIO, called the Anthos storage qualification program a huge opportunity for the channel.

“It’s a big move for Google filling out the whole Anthos program, which is kind of far-reaching,” said Schulz. “They are showing they are realizing that there is more to cloud storage than just blob and object storage, which is good. It’s a strong game out at the edge, where the data is being generated and preprocessed. It’s big for Google, also realizing they were one of the early principals in the whole container game.”