MinIO, a pioneer in high performance, Kubernetes-native object storage, today announced a significant expansion of its partnership with VMware, connecting MinIO object storage with VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware Tanzu through the VMware vSAN Data Persistence platform. This solution pairs MinIO's cloud-native application ecosystem with VMware's IT customer base accelerating the adoption of Kubernetes across the enterprise.

The solution will benefit from access to vSAN Direct Configuration, a storage technology that provides modern stateful services with optimal storage efficiency, enabling IT administrators to provision peta-scale infrastructure with a few clicks in the VMware vCenter interface. The solution will provide enterprises with the ability to create extremely large scale object storage clusters with minimal friction.

With the addition of MinIO object storage to the vSAN Data Persistence platform VMware gains access to the ecosystem of cloud-native applications that depend on MinIO for their data infrastructure. MinIO, in turn, benefits from access to VMware's enterprise IT ecosystem. When released, IT administrators will be able to quickly and easily provision high-performance, multi-tenant object storage from the vCenter interface.

"We are delighted to have MinIO as an early design partner for the vSAN Data Persistence platform," said Lee Caswell, VP Marketing, CPBU, VMware. "MinIO is a leader in object storage with a Kubernetes-native design that brings simplicity, performance and resiliency for enterprise IT customers looking to deploy cloud-native applications on object storage at scale. Our mutual customers are excited about the rich portfolio of cloud-native applications that MinIO brings to the partnership."

This optimized solution supports VMware's goal of letting enterprises build, run, manage, connect, and protect any app on any cloud and across clouds. That requires consistency with regard to the infrastructure, operations and developer experiences. MinIO abstracts the differences inherent in both public cloud object storage and private cloud protocols such as HDFS, NFS, SMB, and iSCSI. MinIO can be deployed on any cloud infrastructure, converting them into an AWS S3 compatible object storage service, while simultaneously providing seamless interoperability to existing storage systems. Applications are able to access data on their existing legacy systems without migrating the data over. As a result, both cloud-native applications and traditional enterprise applications can co-exist - creating a roadmap for the eventual migration to 100% cloud native.

"The launch of the vSAN Data Persistence platform is a remarkable achievement and will significantly accelerate the adoption of Kubernetes by simplifying how this powerful technology goes to market," said AB Periasamy, co-founder and CEO of MinIO. "The combination of MinIO's software-defined, high-performance, cloud-native object storage with VMware Cloud Foundation with Tanzu opens up use cases and applications that were beyond the reach of each company individually."

MinIO's offering for the vSAN Data Persistence platform will be accessible through the vCenter interface. Customers will be able to trial the software for 60 days through a license key. All trial customers will be onboarded to the MinIO Subscription Network where they will receive support, diagnostics and can manage their licensing going forward. The solution is planned for the final calendar quarter of the year.