The term “self-driving car” has worked its way into such widespread use that it’s become a part of the popular lexicon. Now the “self-driving cloud” may soon become a commonly used term as well.

ZeroStack Inc. employs intelligent software to deliver a self-driving private cloud platform as a way to make it easier for developers to develop and let information technology operations professionals manage the compute infrastructure. “We’re really trying to deliver that public cloud-like experience to users while giving IT the kind of control they want to have,” said David Greene (pictured), chief executive officer of ZeroStack.

Greene paid a visit to the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with host Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick) at SiliconANGLE’s studio in Palo Alto, California. They discussed the philosophy behind the self-driving cloud, how ZeroStack makes running a private cloud easier, the role of machine learning, and the cost benefits associated with its platform. (* Disclosure below.)

Watch Part 1 of the complete video interview with David Greene below:

Changes can be adapted quickly

The concept behind a “self-driving cloud” is to combine private IT infrastructure with machine learning so that changes can be adapted quickly and automatically. Self-service, on-demand tools common in the public cloud world are provided for businesses seeking to make the deployment of a private cloud an easier experience.

“From an IT standpoint, running a private cloud is hard. It’s expensive to set up, it’s expensive to operate; it’s complicated; it’s hard to hire the people. You’re trying to get away from that burden,” Greene explained.

ZeroStack recently announced new host-based metrics to enable IT management of its cloud platform. These include alerting policies that can monitor CPU and memory utilization, storage capacity and network rates.

The company also offers developers a self-service capability to create their own workbenches. DevOps Workbench includes development tools such as Maven, Ansible, Bitbucket and Jenkins.

ZeroStack is finding that offering key tools for developers is helping drive adoption of its private cloud model. “There typically is a pain point where IT isn’t keeping up with its application developers,” Greene said.

Watch Part 2 of the complete video interview with David Greene below:

Machine learning automates tasks

On the operations side, machine learning technology is designed to help reduce the amount of administrative support needed to keep the infrastructure running smoothly. “Machine learning is also helpful in how to get the most out of your infrastructure,” Greene said. “There’s too many tasks that IT has had to do manually. We want to be able to automate those tasks.”

In addition to automation, ZeroStack makes its case for cost benefits associated with taking control of the IT stack. This scenario has become more significant with the rise of data sovereignty laws where citizens’ information stored on servers, as in countries such as Germany, France and Russia, must stay inside the geographic region.

“People are discovering over time that it’s much more expensive to rent than to own,” Greene said. “As public cloud has spread and gotten more mature, people are realizing that there’s a need to bring that home to better control the cost.”

In a hybrid cloud world, ZeroStack is building its business as a simpler way to balance the demands of developers and operations staff who want the self-service benefits of the public cloud with the ability to control IT on-premises.

“There have been people in the industry who said that the whole world was going to become public cloud,” Greene said. “Our view is that’s not the case.”

Be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CubeConversations. (* Disclosure: ZeroStack Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither ZeroStack nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE