Storage Management Strategies for the CIO
This was a banner year for consolidation among storage and IT vendors, with two multibillion dollar deals for disk array vendors leading the way. Along with two SAN vendors, targets of 2010 technology
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acquisitions
included a clustered NAS
pioneer, two primary data
reduction players, and two data
protection software firms.
Here are the top storage acquisitions of 2010:
1. Hewlett-Packard-3PAR
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co. outbid Dell Inc. in a three-week auction, landing storage array and thin
provisioning pioneer 3PAR
for $2.35 billion. After the deal closed, HP executives said 3PAR would be their leading storage
platform and fit in the mid-tier, high-end and cloud markets.
Associated stories
HP
beats Dell, pays $2.35 billion for 3PAR
HP sees 3PAR as a three-gap product
2. EMC-Isilon
EMC Corp. paid $2.25 billion for Isilon
Systems Inc., indicating EMC suddenly saw clustered NAS as a must-have technology or it wanted to
keep Isilon away from NetApp or Dell.
Associated story
EMC
buys clustered NAS vendor Isilon for $2.25 billion
3. Dell-Compellent Technologies
In the last storage technology acquisition of 2010, Dell landed Compellent
Technologies Inc. as an $820 million consolation prize after losing out to HP for 3PAR. Besides
giving Dell another SAN platform of its own to go with EqualLogic, the deal probably means Dell's
OEM partnership with EMC won't survive 2011.
Associated story
Dell
buys SAN array vendor Compellent for $820 million
4. Vision Solutions-Double-Take
Vision Solutions Inc. paid $242 million for the data protection software vendor, which specializes
in high-availability software. Vision will reshuffle Double-Take
Software Inc. products a bit, emphasizing protection for virtual machines.
Associated stories
Double-Take
to be acquired by Vision Solutions
Vision Solutions CEO on Double-Take: 'Virtualization is exciting'
5. Dell-Ocarina Networks
Dell paid approximately $150 million to acquire Ocarina
Networks in the first of two July deals involving primary data reduction startups. Dell hasn't
integrated Ocarina's technology in any of its storage products yet, but it's certain to show up in
primary storage (EqualLogic and Compellent) and probably in backup as well.
Associated stories
Dell-Ocarina
deal will alter landscape of primary deduplication
Dell buys Ocarina, plans to dedupe across its portfolio
6. IBM-Storwize
IBM completed its $140 million acquisition of Storwize
Inc. nine days after Dell bought Ocarina, but it was no secret that IBM was looking to make the
deal before Dell struck. IBM will likely add Storwize's in-line compression to its storage
products, and relaunched Storwize's pre-acquisition product as the IBM Real-Time Compression
Appliance. IBM also borrowed the Storwize brand for its V7000 storage virtualization array, which
does not yet include any compression.
Associated story
IBM
buys Storwize for primary data compression
7. NetApp-Bycast
NetApp got into object storage with this deal, and it considers Bycast
Inc.'s technology a building block for private and public cloud implementations. NetApp will seek
to widen Bycast's target market, which consisted mainly of healthcare companies that need to store
medical images.
Associated story
NetApp
adds object storage with Bycast acquisition
8. EMC-Greenplum
EMC occasionally makes acquisitions outside the traditional data storage market, such as VMware and
RSA Security. Greenplum
Inc. was a cheaper pickup than those other two, and gives EMC a "big data" play for warehousing and
data analytics. EMC has already used the Greenplum deal to launch a rival to Oracle Corp.'s
Exadata.
Associated stories
EMC
acquires Greenplum for data warehousing, analytics
EMC Greenplum Data Computing Appliance takes on Oracle Exadata
9. Quest Software-BakBone
Quest Software Inc. spent $55 million on backup software vendor BakBone
Software Inc., adding it to a stable of products that includes virtual machine backup application
vRanger. Quest will either try to combine them into one backup app, or at least hope that customers
want to buy physical and virtual backup from the same vendor.
Associated story
Virtual
server backup vendor Quest buys BakBone
10. SolarWinds-Tek-Tools
Network management vendor SolarWinds acquired Tek-Tools
for $42 million, giving it storage management for its common IT management framework.
Associated stories
SolarWinds
aims to integrate Tek-Tools storage resource management with network, server management
SolarWinds sweeps up SRM vendor Tek-Tools
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