Storage vendor EMC has announced a partnership with Puppet Labs, developer of popular infrastructure automation tools.

Puppet Enterprise software helps IT departments reduce time spent on common configuration and management tasks - something that’s especially important for the adherents of DevOps methodology.

Now, this software will be available as an extension of the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud platform, built using products from EMC and its sister companies VMware and Pivotal.

The partners will collaborate on deeper product integration and launch a DevOps Readiness program.

Infrastructure as code

Puppet Labs has more than 25,000 customers and its products are used by 63 of the Fortune 100 companies.

The software itself relies on modules - reusable, sharable units of Puppet code, available through the online repository called the Puppet Forge. Some modules are developed for specific hardware, so Puppet Labs’ relationships with major infrastructure vendors are paramount.

Starting this summer, EMC customers will be able to buy pre-tested Puppet modules with any EMC hardware or software.

As a pioneer of the DevOps movement, Puppet Labs will also run a DevOps Readiness program, providing training and guidance first for EMC’s professional service engineers, and then its customers.

Puppet Labs’ director of product marketing Tim Zonca told DatacenterDynamics that partnerships will continue driving the company forward: over the last few months, it has made similar deals with Arista, Cumulus, F5 Networks and Dell.

Another driver is Puppet Apps, which offer extended functionality beyond automation, for example node management.

Zonca said the company will be launching more apps in the nearest future, while continuing to update and improve the existing code base.