Google Cloud has announced the acquisition of CloudSimple, a California-based provider of software to help organisations run VMware workloads in the cloud.

The move expands on the companies’ existing partnership and will enable Google to bring forward a fully integrated VMware migration path, with the promise of improved support.

“Apps [from VMware] can run exactly the same as they have been on-premises, but with all the benefits of the cloud, like performance, elasticity, and integration with key cloud services and technologies,” wrote Rich Sanzi, VP engineering at Google Cloud, in a blog post. “Best of all, customers can do all this without having to rearchitect existing VMware-based applications and workloads, which helps them operate more efficiently and reduce costs, while also allowing IT staff to maintain consistency and use their existing VMware tools, workflows and support.

“To that end, we believe in a multi-cloud world and will continue to provide choice for our customers to use the best technology in their journey to the cloud,” added Sanzi.

This may not go down as the most surprising acquisition of 2019, given the announcement in August of extended entente cordiale between VMware and Google Cloud. The companies’ solution which enabled customers to run VMware workloads on-prem, in the cloud or as part of a hybrid architecture was based on CloudSimple’s technology.

CloudSimple had a similar offering in place with Microsoft, allowing organisations to run native VMware environments at scale on the Azure cloud. Guru Pangal, CloudSimple CEO, noted that while partnerships with the two hyperscalers taught the company how to ‘dance amongst the elephants’, Google Cloud’s ‘innovation prowess’ and ‘clear leadership’ in analytics sealed the deal.

“We saw the incredible potential to transform enterprise workloads to the cloud by partnering more strategically with a cloud provider who could help us with larger investments and tighter integration with the cloud to realise the massive potential of our offering,” Pangal wrote. “Google Cloud’s amazing innovation prowess, modern infrastructure and clear leadership in areas like smart analytics convinced us that joining this incredible team will accelerate our joint vision.”

The move, for which financial terms were not disclosed, represents the fourth Google Cloud acquisition of 2019. CloudSimple follows on from enterprise data pipeline provider Alooma in February, business intelligence platform Looker in June and storage vendor Elastifile in July.

“The acquisition of CloudSimple continues to demonstrate Google Cloud’s commitment to providing enterprise customers a broad suite of solutions to modernise their IT infrastructure,” said Sanzi.

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