Cloudian Buys File Storage Pioneer

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The vibrant enterprise storage sector that has spawned a batch of aggressive startups offering all-flash and other advanced storage approaches is also showing early signs of realignment as established players look to expand their reach to meet provide scalable platforms.

Among them is object storage specialist Cloudian, which followed up on expansion plans announced last month with the acquisition of an Italy-based software-defined file storage specialist. Cloudian said Thursday (March 15) its acquisition of Infinity Storage, headquartered in Milan, would enable it to integrate file and object-based storage to “consolidate all unstructured data types into a limitlessly scalable storage pool.”

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The storage vendors previously collaborated on a network-attached storage (NAS) controller. The tool is designed to deliver enterprise file services via Cloudian’s hybrid cloud storage platform dubbed HyperStore that combines object and file storage.

Caterina Falchi, founder of Infinity Storage, is credited with inventing the file system approach dubbed WORM, for “write once, ready many,” that provides file management and secure access to data. WORM was developed to comply with strict European Union data integrity regulations. Cloudian noted that the file system also be used to prevent data corruption caused by malware and ransomware.

Along with WORM, Cloudian said its HyperFile NAS controller includes support for enterprise file sharing protocols and the ability to scale storage of fast-growing unstructured data.

Cloudian, San Mateo, Calif., and other storage specialists are increasingly focusing on data-driven workloads, with unstructured data volumes estimated to be growing at a 50-percent annual clip. Over the next several years, the amount of enterprise data stored in cloud datacenters is expected to jump from 30 percent to 80 percent, according to market tracker Gartner Inc. (NYSE: IT).

“This acquisition further accelerates Cloudian’s efforts to reduce IT workloads with self-protecting and easy-to-scale file systems that analysts agree are critical for next-generation storage management,” said Cloudian CEO Michael Tso.

The Infinity Storage acquisition follows an object storage partnership between Cloudian and investor Digital Alpha. The partners said the $125 million storage joint venture aims to accelerate adoption of Cloudian’s enterprise object storage platform. The investment also finances a partnership between Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Cloudian.

The collaboration reflects what market forecasters predict will be soaring demand for scalable data storage. Over the next three years, for example, IDC predicts object-based storage capacity will grow more than 30 percent annually, accounting for a whopping 293.7 exabytes of storage by 2020.

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