Developers can now run a fast Redis database on IBM’s SoftLayer cloud

Garantia Data, a company that provides a fast hosted database service that developers can use while building applications, has brought its technology to IBM’s growing public cloud service, SoftLayer.

The news came today in a post on an IBM blog from Garantia Data executive Itamar Haber.

Developers who want to use Garantia Data’s service, Redis Cloud, which is a souped-up version of the open-source in-memory key-value store Redis, don’t need to worry about expanding their cloud infrastructure, Haber wrote. “Redis Cloud’s fully managed service on SoftLayer performs automated clustering, scaling, data persistence, performance optimization, and failure recovery from a single console, so you get ‘hands free’ Redis management,” he wrote.

As one of many NoSQL databases that can handle a wide variety of data unlike traditional relational databases, Redis runs at many big companies, including Guardian.co.uk, Digg, StackOverflow, and Flickr. Garantia Data’s product makes the database easier to use and more reliable to prevent failures when individual physical servers run into issues.

The new support for Redis Cloud could help IBM lure more developers onto its cloud. IBM has simultaneously been trying to match public cloud competitor Amazon Web Services in some ways and exploring methods of standing out in a fast-moving and not always friendly market. This move in particular moves IBM up a notch in terms of the ability to run the expansive Redis Cloud, right alongside Amazon and other public clouds including Microsoft’s Windows Azure.

The deal also bodes well for Garantia Data, because now it has a way of bringing in revenue when companies select IBM for cloud deployments. In November the company announced a $9 million funding round.

On its website, Garantia Data shows how its Redis Cloud beats out Amazon’s own hosted Redis database service, ElastiCache, on a number of fronts, including the ability to pay based on database size and the ability to grow infinitely. Amazon customers interested in Redis can choose to use either ElastiCache or the Redis Cloud. Or they can use the basic open-source Redis.

Putting aside questions of comparison, IBM now might feel less pressed to throw engineers at the task of building a scalable Redis database to run on its cloud. Instead, IBM can allocate more resources to other sore points that can make it a more popular choice for individual developers and big companies looking to run more of their workloads on external infrastructure.