NetApp announced the acquisition of Riverbed Technology’s SteelStore product line in an all-cash transaction for approximately $80 million.
The SteelStore product supports leading backup applications and cloud providers so that customers have a choice in how they extend their existing data protection infrastructure into the cloud. NetApp will offer enterprises cloud-integrated storage to securely and efficiently back up their data to both private and public cloud environments.
The SteelStore product supports both NetApp and third-party storage infrastructures as well as a full set of market-leading third-party backup software and cloud providers. Customers will be able to augment their current infrastructures to not only reduce the complexity of disk-to-cloud and tape-based technology, but also reduce storage costs by up to 80% with in-line deduplication and compression capabilities. Lastly, the SteelStore product meets encryption and security standards that will enable NetApp to offer customers end-to-end security for both data at rest and data in flight as it moves between cloud environments. As a result, customers will be able to overcome vendor lock-in and the management costs of their current backup environments. They will also be able to achieve the enterprise openness, efficiency, and security they require to back up their data in the cloud.
“We believe this is a sound transaction for both companies. The decision to divest the SteelStore product line reflects Riverbed’s commitment to focus on businesses and opportunities which both leverage our core competencies and allow us to deliver the best solutions in the application performance infrastructure market for today’s hybrid enterprise,” said Jerry M. Kennelly, chairman and CEO of Riverbed Technology. “The acquisition is a very logical extension to NetApp, a leader in data management and storage, and allows NetApp customers to extend existing backup, archive, and disaster recovery to the cloud.”
NetApp expects that the SteelStore product will be available during its fiscal third quarter of 2015.
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