Another piece of cloud M&A but this time with a Kubernetes feel; hybrid cloud provider NetApp has announced the acquisition of StackPointCloud with the claim of providing the industry's first complete Kubernetes platform for multi-cloud deployments.

As the company's hosting page put it, the proposed hook up is 'the simplest way to deploy a Kubernetes cluster to the clouds'. The NetApp Kubernetes Service is compatible with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform with more than 7500 clusters deployed thus far – 5785 on AWS, 1286 on Google and 596 at Azure. 

If multi-cloud is making more sense for organisations with greater efficiency for different workloads, and Kubernetes and containers makes sense for application development and deployment, why not both? 

StackPointCloud's technology offers 'zero to Kubernetes in three clicks' which comprises the key feature of easy upgrade. Other features include Istio support, volume support and dashboard capability.

Kubernetes has clearly been the leader in container orchestration – but as Ronald Sens, director EMEA marketing at A10 Networks noted in this publication earlier this week, there is more that can be done. "The key point here is that enterprise organisations are starting to take note and there are signs that the market for Kubernetes is growing very rapidly," wrote Sens.

"This acquisition will benefit customers looking to simplify the delivery of data and applications in clouds, across clouds and hybrid clouds," said Anthony Lye, SVP and general manager of NetApp's cloud data services business unit. "The StackPointCloud Kubernetes as a service platform combined with NetApp's Cloud Data Services creates a complete DevOps solution, so customers can focus on innovation, not administration."

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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