When storage area networks entered the data storage playing field over a decade ago, it set in motion a rapid change in storage infrastructure layers and shook technology markets.

The software-defined data center became a dominant model, eliminating overhead and exposing inefficient and expensive core functionality. Cloud computing came after, with hyper-scale infrastructure enabling companies to control their infrastructure in the cloud and distribute data at a massive scale.

Today, a new infrastructure revolution is on the horizon, according to Tobias Flitsch (pictured, right), director of product management at cloud-based software company Nebulon. The company is devoted to helping businesses adapt to public cloud on-premises infrastructure and recognizes organizations view the cloud as an operating model rather than anything physical.

“Smart infrastructure is all around us,” Flitsch said. “Think smart home technology like Google Nest as an example. What this all has in common is that there’s a cloud control plane that is managing IoT endpoints and smart devices in various locations. By doing that, customers gain benefits like easy remote management.”

Nebulon adapts these benefits and ideals on a large scale, allowing companies to more easily manage computer and storage infrastructure.

Flitsch and Craig Nunes (pictured, left), co-founder and chief operating officer of Nebulon, spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE at SiliconANGLE’s livestreaming studio for a digital CUBE Conversation. They discussed on-prem cloud management, the future of smart infrastructure, hybrid IT management and more.

Leveraging innovation

Nebulon, similar to a lot of recent startups, operates on an as-a-service-based payment model.

“The way we do this is is by leveraging two key innovations,” Flitsch said. “One is the introduction of a cloud control plane that manages this on-premise application infrastructure that is delivered to customers as a service.”

The second innovation is using new infrastructure models that use the internet of things endpoint technology. Nebulon achieves this by recommending its clients build software on vendor-agnostic technologies, allowing management services to run on any public cloud vendor or in private data centers.

The edge is a current hot topic, experiencing a massive transformation with the introduction of IoT and 5G. Nebulon seeks to take advantage of the distributed edge, as it’s more cost-effective with more dense infrastructure, with the cloud managing all of these sites through a single API. Additionally, Nebulon works with cloud service providers, assisting them with building top growth and driving a better bottom line.

“This is as much as a revenue opportunity for them as a cost-saving opportunity,” Nunes said. “The last one is this notion of bringing the cloud on-prem, and we’ve done a cloud repatriation deal. I can tell you in our first deals we’ve already seen it, so it’s out there. Those are the places where people are getting started with us today.”

Nunes closed the conversation by laying out Nebulon’s projected roadmap, with plans to build data storage services and become faster, as well as assisting customers to adapt to their modernization efforts.

“We’ve already got SDKs for things like Python and PowerShell, but we’ve got an Ansible SDK. We’re trying to help folks better spin this stuff up within their organization, their infrastructure,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations.

Photo: SiliconANGLE