It's been a year since Loadbalancer.org officially partnered with Cloudian. How's it going?!

In my time here at Loadbalancer, I've seen how available, adaptive, and customer-focused we are, and I absolutely love that about my role. I've also had the privilege of working directly with Cloudian. And so, 12 months after we went public, here are the benefits I think the partnership has brought to both sides, and what I've learned about the unique requirements of storage providers!

The story so far...

About Cloudian

For those unfamiliar with Cloudian, they are the leader in data management software for the hybrid cloud. Their S3-compatible object storage optimizes data access, meets data sovereignty requirements, and cuts costs by consolidating information to a single, cloud-like platform that is secure, scalable, and seamlessly integrated into the cloud.

With Cloudian's geo-distributed architecture, object and file data can be managed and protected at the edge, the core, and in the cloud, for both conventional and modern applications. Before I dive into the update, here's a little background on why Cloudian chose to partner with us in the first place!

Why did Cloudian choose to partner with us?

In a nutshell

First and foremost, Cloudian are the star of the show. Their storage applications do amazing things, and offer exabyte-scale storage for capacity-intensive workloads: S3-compatible storage for on-prem, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud.

But, by adding a load balancer into the mix, users are protected from application downtime, and the performance of Cloudian's HyperStore application is fully optimized. Think of Loadbalancer.org, if you will, as the Robin to their Batman. Batman was awesome on his own, but there were times when Robin really helped him out!

The sales takeaway: more tailoring opportunities

We offer technology providers more flexible tech, commercial, and support options than any other ADC on the market. So, for those providers whose journey culminates in a full, tailored OEM partnership, we can flex to meet their unique needs. We even renamed one of our solutions, the Flex, for this reason! Our products are then easily integrated, taking care of all of their high availability, security, and scalability requirements, and providing the end-user with a seamless solution.

The techie takeaway: our ADCs and HyperStore are a marriage made in heaven

HyperStore's shared-nothing architecture allows any storage node to answer any incoming request, enabling performance to grow as new nodes are added.

Nevertheless, with an integrated load balancer, this architecture is optimized, meaning customers can maximize their performance by evenly distributing workloads across all nodes, thus eliminating bottlenecks.

In addition, our HyperBalance load balancer, developed specifically for Cloudian, establishes a clear delineation between the object storage infrastructure and the networking infrastructure, thereby effectively turning the HyperStore into a private storage cloud that can be accessed and utilized via a single IP address.

Essentially all this means load balancing can address the key challenges of managing large data volumes at scale.

For more on all this, here's a blog explaining in more detail where and why it all began: Loadbalancer creates a tailored load balancer for Cloudian to take their object storage solutions to the next level!

So what's happened since then? Well, I came along, for one ; ). I'm joking! But for more on me check out my bio.

In the meantime, let's bring you right up-to-date...

Cloudian and Loadbalancer.org 12 months on...

What does the relationship look like day-to-day?

We work with our partners to continually evolve and enhance our offering so we can help each other get the most out of the relationship.

With Cloudian, this means we:

1. Have a structured approach to joint projects and goals.
2. Share storage and load balancing expertise to our mutual benefit.
3. Work together to meet any training needs.
4. Share best practice, FAQs, news, success stories, and any road bumps.
5. Have developed together a toolkit of hands-on resources to help them out in the field.

My compadre at Cloudian, Senior Technical Engineer Scott Ekstrom, has his own take-aways:

"We really value our partnership with Loadbalancer. The ongoing relationship with them has helped us navigate customer conversations more effectively and given us more ammunition to win more deals out in the field."

Lessons learned/my takeaways

Load balancing is in its own world of niche solutions. Trust me, if load balancing isn't already in your day-to-day, it really pays to leverage the expertise of others!

Most modern load balancers underpin key projects but are often the last in the chain to be considered and purchased. Someone once described load balancing as like choosing the oil cap on a new car. Important? Yes. Top of the list of priorities? Definitely not. This helps me keep perspective when speaking to my Sales colleagues at Cloudian, and more fully appreciate how they position themselves in the market.

In the space of 12 months we have come a long way from what was a brief conversation and idea. The work put in by my outstanding Development and Support colleagues to purpose-build this solution for the S3 world is nothing short of extraordinary. To round up my own thoughts, I know that Loadbalancer.org is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to Cloudian, but the ship has steadied and we are looking ahead to a prosperous relationship.

Having open and honest discussions, and doing so regularly, is such a powerful tool for any project, and I am grateful to my colleagues at Cloudian for welcoming me into the fold with such warmth and positivity, and for allowing me to be part of this great story.

Why do storage solution providers want to work with Loadbalancer?

We are lucky enough to work with a number of pioneering object and file storage providers in the industry. And now I understand why!

As one of our partners put it: storage solutions are unique. And so are the challenges they face. Whether it's changing customer needs, a more competitive market, or financial pressures, we can flex our approach to address their key challenges, helping them optimize their deployments, and maximize their returns.

For more on how it works or how to get started, find out more about our unique, tailored, load-balancing partner approach.

Want to hear more from me? Let me know in the comments!! Otherwise, don't say I didn't warn you...