Microsoft has purchased cloud computing start-up, Cycle Computing, for an undisclosed sum.
The company states the acquisition will enable customers to “use High-Performance Computing (HPC) and other Big Computing capabilities” in the public cloud.
The acquisition is a strong strategic move in the ‘cloud wars’ Microsoft faces against Google.
Cycle Computing is a developer of software used to orchestrate workloads in the Azure, Amazon and Google clouds.
One of Cycle Computing’s first notable achievements was the use of its technology to transform Amazon’s burgeoning Web Services in 2012, into a supercomputer running the equivalent of 50,000 individual computers.
The company also works with public and private clouds from other vendors to manage data, orchestrate workloads and “balance cloud options”.
Microsoft Azure’s Corporate Vice President, Jason Zander, spoke of the deal that “Cycle Computing’s depth and expertise around massively scalable applications make them a great fit to join [the] Microsoft team. Their technology will further enhance [our] support Linux HPC workloads and make it easier to extend on-premise workloads to the cloud”.
At this stage, Microsoft states it will continue to support Cycle Computing clients who use AWS or Google Cloud. It did inform, however, that future Microsoft versions released will be Azure-focused.
Microsoft affirms its commitment to provide customers with an effortless migration to Azure, should they choose to migrate.
