NetApp and analytic database maker ParAccel have gone into business together. On Sept. 20, the two companies jointly announced that ParAccel's analytics engine has been integrated to run natively inside NetApp's unified storage architecture.

What does this mean for NetApp customers? For one thing, it gives them a new measure of storage control and visibility, and everybody needs as much of that as they can get -- even if it's just clothing in a bedroom closet.

ParAccel's secret sauce balances data flow across storage devices, so that workload allocation is manageable -- enabling NetApp SAN and NAS systems to bump up their analytics performance. This makes it possible for users to perform so-called "nimble analytics" -- extremely complex analyses on large volumes of data -- within a data warehouse.

NetApp already has enhanced data management, thanks to its advanced backup, recovery, restore, management and utilization capabilities. The addition of ParAccel's engine gives users the ability to have better insight into the business data so that it can be used as a more effective business asset.

For this new partnership, NetApp's Alliance Partner Program provides infrastructure and application providers with access to software development kits, technical support, training, certification, product information, marketing, and sales assistance.