If reports are to be believed, AWS is about to or has already acquired CloudEndure for $250 million. If this turns out to be true, it’s a great sale for a small company, possibly overpriced. But more importantly, it shows AWS’ intent to enter into the backup, DR and migration space.

 

For all public cloud providers, simplifying migration into their cloud is really important. It’s not about data; moving data into public clouds is a relatively simple thing to do. It’s about moving applications from on-premises into public cloud – this is not so simple. Migrating enterprise applications can be time-consuming and complex.

 

Products like CloudEndure simplify that process. Automating the task of moving data and applications from a legacy platform to cloud and getting the whole thing up and running with minimum downtime and no data loss creates challenges. They are not the only one; Other new companies like Zerto are doing this and established companies like NetApp and Commvault also have solutions in this space.

 

If you look at companies like CloudEndure, their game plan tends to be about being cloud agnostic and the nirvana they are trying to reach is to be able to move data and applications seamlessly between public clouds. That’s what IT managers and CIOs really want because having easy movement between public clouds means no tie-in and the ability to move between clouds based on better pricing and service levels, etc.

 

With AWS buying CloudEndure, the likelihood is they will focus more on making it a great option for getting your applications into their platform. They may not have so much incentive to develop the product to get better at moving applications off their platform and certainly not onto other clouds.

 

So if this rumour is true, we suspect this will be the end of CloudEndure as a viable option to deliver enterprise application mobility between clouds and will become a tool to make migration into AWS easier. In essence, this is a technology purchase and not a market making new revenue line purchase.

 

However, CloudEndure has its limitations. As an example, it is not as enterprise-class as some of the offerings from the companies mentioned above, so possibly expect AWS to add more technology purchases in this space in the future.