Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) announced the acquisition of its partner BlueArc Corporation, a leader in scalable, high performance network storage. With this acquisition, Hitachi is executing on its strategy to transform traditional data centers into information centers – where customers can seamlessly store and access all data, content and information. Information that is available and searchable from anywhere and at any time. Information that is independent of the infrastructure, independent of the application and can be securely and cost-effectively accessed, searched, managed and governed forever.
The HDS strategy is comprised of three integrated foundational components: infrastructure cloud, content cloud and information cloud – all of which leverage industry leading virtualization technology from HDS to deliver enhanced efficiencies and cost savings to customers each step of the way.
The infrastructure cloud optimizes the underlying infrastructure of servers, storage and networking without impacting application performance. The content cloud leverages data intelligence tools to enable data indexing, search and discovery across platforms. The information cloud will apply information analytics to allow the complete independence of data from applications and usher in new capabilities of data re-use for business purposes.
BlueArc is a key link between infrastructure cloud and content cloud with its expertise in file-based virtualization, built-in intelligent tiering, automated data movement capabilities for unstructured data and tight integration with the Hitachi file, content and block portfolio. This enables customers to gain control of their unstructured data with seamless access, search, retention, consolidation and archiving capabilities.
HDS and BlueArc have closely collaborated on product definition since the beginning of the companies’ partnership, and today’s acquisition brings opportunities for even tighter product development strategies that will provide greater benefits to customers.
Jack Domme, CEO, Hitachi Data Systems said,“The exponential growth of digital content, particularly unstructured content, has had a dramatic effect on all businesses, including the requirements on IT. Over the past 5 years, BlueArc has been an integral part of our strategy to help customers store and manage unstructured data of all types, such as video, email, medical imaging, scientific data and more.”
Jack further added, “Our combined efforts will deliver cost-effective infrastructure cloud and content cloud solutions that customers can take advantage of as they look to further transform their data centers.”
“Joining forces with Hitachi Data Systems is a win-win situation for our employees, our partners, our customers and our shareholders,” said Mike Gustafson, CEO, BlueArc.
BlueArc is one of the top vendors in the Gartner 2011 NAS Magic Quadrant’s “Visionaries” quadrant2. BlueArc has been an OEM partner of Hitachi Data Systems since November 2006, powering the Hitachi NAS Platform family and its tremendous market growth and presence. Hitachi Data Systems offers the industry’s most complete and integrated end-to-end enterprise virtualization capabilities for both file and block storage.
