The programmatic approach of making data available through pre-implemented functions that mask the shifting complexity of the underlying logic has enabled public clouds such as Google Inc.’s to draw developers away from traditional storage solutions en masse. But many existing applications still abide by the old standards, which is why it’s teamed up with Avere Systems Inc. to adapt its platform for filer-based access.

The Pittsburgh-based networked storage specalist has ported its data gateway onto Google Cloud Platform as part of the partnership to expose files in a way legacy services can handle. That means organizations are now able to move those services to the search giant’s platform without severing access to the information stored in their on-premise file systems and vice versa.

Such a migration has traditionally required rearchitecting the application being moved to an extent where it’s often more worthwhile to simply build everything again from scratch. Providing the ability to easily move workloads to and from its platform is a top priority for Google amid the intensifying rivalry from Microsoft Corp. and Amazon Web Services.

In an effort to shrug off the lead that its competitors enjoy in both adoption and functionality, the search giant has attempted to present its platform as something of a niche environment for performing advanced analytics too complicated to run on traditional on-premise infrastructure. But the partnership with Avere proves that its efforts are more in line with Microsoft’s strategy of differentiation through support for existing assets behind the firewall.

That, not coincidentally, is one of Amazon’s main weaknesses. And the deal with Avere is not Google’s first attempt at exploiting that. The search giant previously struck an alliance with a small outfit called AppScale Systems Inc. that has developed a sort of emulator that enables services built for its platform to run behind the firewall and move back and forth as needed.

Google will no doubt continue to press in that direction as the stakes continue to rise in the public cloud and more traditional organizations with on-premise infrastructure to maintain jump aboard the bandwagon. But the competition won’t simply sit idly while the search giant advances on their turf, which should make for an exciting next few years in the infrastructure -as-a-service space.

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