Nirvanix has hired one of Google’s top data center executives.

Paul Froutan will serve as Nirvanix chief technology officer. At Google, Froutan served as head of global data center infrastructure, responsible for designing, building and managing Google’s worldwide data center operations. Prior to Google, Froutan was vice president of product development at Rackspace Hosting.

Nirvanix provides a public cloud storage network and delivers private cloud storage. The infrastructure is unique as it can be set up within the four walls of an enterprise data center. In a press release, Froutan cited this as a differentiator and a key reason for joining the company.

Nirvanix has developed a strategy in contrast to companies that are using the cloud name to sell hardware. That’s a different competitor than  Amazon Web Services, which Nirvanix CEO Scott Genereux discusses in this interview with Silicon Angle’s John Furrier:

Nirvanix is emerging as a different provider than companies such as EMC, which requires a hardware investment. But EMC and others in the space also offer a familiar package that the CIO feels comfortable with as it is similar to the model that they have employed for so long.

The cloud service provider market will take shape over the next few years. We expect that customers focusing on providing their own services will see Nirvanix as a viable option, drawn to the company’s usage model and low upfront cost for provisioning and implementing the infrastructure.