Veeam acquisition, Google-Actifio highlight 2020 storage M&A
Details protection technologies was in terrific demand from customers in 2020, as 3 of the largest storage acquisition targets concerned backup or disaster recovery sellers.
A blockbuster Veeam acquisition in January and Google’s buyout of Actifio fashioned bookends for the year in M&A. In between, VMware acquired Datrium to bolster its disaster recovery as a assistance (DRaaS).
The greatest 2020 offer to contact storage did not involve backup — that was SK Hynix’s $9 billion pickup of Intel’s memory group. But knowledge protection, alongside with cloud and Kubernetes storage, dominated the number of deals. Details protection deals introduced in the most dollars of individuals.
The following are the most noteworthy storage acquisitions of 2020:
Veeam acquisition provides U.S. possession
Private equity organization Insight Companions went from minority buyers to vast majority owners of virtual backup specialist Veeam in January, in a offer that valued Veeam at $five billion.
Soon after the offer, Veeam founders Ratmir Timashev and Andrei Baronov relinquished command of the corporation, even though Timashev stays a Veeam specialist. Longtime Veeam vet Monthly bill Largent moved into the CEO part for the 2nd time. The new Veeam administration crew explained it desired to improve its existence in the U.S., exactly where sales created up about 15% of its much more than $one billion in 2019 revenue. By the conclusion of 2020, Veeam explained it had much more than four hundred,000 consumers.
In an interview in June, Largent explained there is much more than 50% possibility that Veeam will become a community corporation.
Actifio goes to Google Cloud
Google included knowledge protection for its community cloud by attaining Actifio in December. When Google explained small about its programs for Actifio’s software package, it praised the duplicate knowledge administration pioneer for its backup and disaster recovery abilities.
Actifio was no stranger to the cloud large. Actifio GO for GCP released in 2019 to defend knowledge saved in the Google Cloud System, and Actifio also safeguarded knowledge on Google’s Bare Steel Alternative. Google did not disclose the buy selling price for privately held Actifio, which had much more than $300 million in funding and was valued at much more than $one billion.
VMware picks Datrium for DRaaS
VMware acquired Datrium for $137 million to bulk up knowledge protection, specifically DRaaS. VMware speedily relaunched Datrium DRaaS as VMware Cloud Catastrophe Restoration at VMworld in Oct. The Datrium assistance joins Internet site Restoration in VMware’s DRaaS lineup. VMware Cloud Catastrophe Restoration works with any storage that supports VMware vSphere and does not involve Datrium DVX software package in customers’ knowledge facilities.
NetApp seeds its cloud
NetApp created 3 acquisitions to stoke its hybrid cloud approach: It acquired Talon Application for $23 million in March for file caching software package, it bought CloudJumper for $34 million in April for its virtual desktop software package and invested $340 million for cloud administration software package startup Place in June.
NetApp has presently place its new technologies to use. It released Place Storage by NetApp and Place Ocean by NetApp for administration compute and storage with Kubernetes, integrated Talon software package for file caching in NetApp Cloud Volumes OnTap and Microsoft Azure NetApp Data files, and turned CloudJumper VDI into NetApp Digital Desktop Management Service.
Intel dumps NAND SSD, keeps Optane
Looking for to emphasis on its core CPU business, Intel offered its memory business to rival SK Hynix for $9 billion. Intel did keep the greatest pure storage piece of its memory business — its Optane system centered on 3D XPoint memory for bigger efficiency than NAND SSDs.
Pure flashes cash on Kubernetes Veeam purchases Kasten
Pure Storage paid out $370 million for Kubernetes storage software package seller Portworx in September. The all-flash seller is making an attempt to keep ahead of the curve by obtaining its very own container storage, and will consider to combine code between the Portworx Kubernetes Details Expert services System and the Pure Service Orchestrator.
Veeam invested $one hundred fifty million of Insight’s cash influx on Kubernetes backup seller Kasten, filling a coming need to have for container-centered protection. Veeam presently had a technologies and sales partnership with Kasten, but the acquisition provides it much more command around the Kubernetes administration software package.
StorCentric plucks Violin for flash storage
StorCentric included battling all-flash seller Violin to its listing of disparate storage organizations. StorCentric was designed by a merger of disk seller Nexsan and lower-conclusion NAS corporation Drobo in 2018, and included Mac backup software package seller Retrospect and NVMe flash startup Vexata in 2019. Violin provides StorCentric a mature flash programs system. Violin was an early leader in the flash array activity, but the corporation has two times desired bailing out. Private equity organization Quantum Companions bought Violin’s belongings out of personal bankruptcy in 2017 but shut its San Jose, Calif., headquarters and created drastic staffing cuts in 2019 ahead of searching for yet another consumer.
Panzura finds new owners
Like the Veeam acquisition, cloud NAS startup Panzura was picked up by a personal equity organization. Profile Money Management bought Panzura in May perhaps and swapped out CEO Patrick Harr for Jill Stelfox. Profile and Stelfox explained they see price in Panzura mainly because of an uptick in cloud use.
Quantum’s compact leaps
NAS and backup seller Quantum expanded its item achieve with two acquisitions: Quantum bought ActiveScale object storage from Western Electronic and acquired Sq. Box Techniques for its CatDV electronic asset administration software package.
Details protection tuck-ins
Backup sellers and stability sellers created a couple other smaller sized deals to select up complementary technologies: Cloud backup seller Druva acquired sfApex for Salesforce, Rubrick bought Opas AI for its AI technologies, and cloud e mail stability organization Zix picked up SaaS backup startup CloudAlly.