Earlier this week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, NetApp announced that it is investing up to $15 million in a partnership with Microsoft to further accelerate the adoption of the cloud in the enterprise. The new ecosystem will be a sales + technology collaboration. This partnership will signal a beefed up “win” for both NetApp’s and Microsoft’s cloud strategies.

The NetApp Partner Program is an “add-on” if you will, complementing the existing Microsoft Cloud OS Accelerate program, helping customers offset the service costs of deploying Microsoft cloud solutions. The NetApp Partner Program will include sales enablement, training, and incentives for NetApp reselling partners who are assisting enterprise customers with their transition to the cloud. By combining NetApp storage, data management, and converged infrastructure solutions with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and System Center 2012, enterprise customers can reduce costs, increase agility, and improve efficiency.

This isn’t exactly a new partnership either. NetApp and Microsoft have been working together in partnership for over a decade now. But in the new NetApp Partner Program, reselling partners can offer ready to integrate and increased business value NetApp and Microsoft solutions. Through validated NetApp and Microsoft designs that combine NetApp storage efficiency with System Center management capabilities, the savings and value are felt immediately.

“A core element of Microsoft’s Cloud OS strategy is to share with customers the technical advances that Microsoft has developed through its own experiences in running many large internet scale services, and help them get cloud benefits including increased resiliency, simplified management, reduced cost and faster delivery of services to the business.” said Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president, Server and Tools Marketing, Microsoft. “We are excited to welcome NetApp to the Cloud OS Accelerate Program and work with them to deliver these benefits to our joint customers and partners.”

Expect this NetApp + Microsoft news to give a boost to NetApp’s partners and resellers. An additional perk can be expected from this partnership, as noted by BusinessCloudNews, as Microsoft just recently announced that its channel partners selling cloud solutions (Microsoft’s among others) experience nearly double Microsoft’s gross profit and faster growth. I fully expect the NetApp’s Partner Ecosystem to accelerate the cloud adoption in the enterprise.