NetApp Acquired Riverbed SteelStore Product Line

NetApp, Inc. announced the acquisition of Riverbed Technology, Inc.‘s SteelStore product line in an all-cash transaction for approximately $80 million.

The SteelStore product supports 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 backup their data to both private and public cloud environments.

“Cloud has become a major disruption in the backup and recovery market as customers look to augment their data protection and data management operations,” said Jonathan Kissane, SVP, chief strategy officer, and GM of cloud business, NetApp. “The SteelStore product will expand our portfolio and support our customers’ hybrid cloud initiatives by integrating cloud storage as an option for backup and archiving their business data. This product, coupled with our broad ecosystem of application and cloud service providers, will give enterprises a heterogeneous backup solution to leverage the flexibility and economics of the cloud for their backup and recovery needs.“

Open, Efficient, and Secure Cloud-Integrated Backup
As enterprises plan for and integrate cloud storage resources in the way that works best for them, NetApp helps customers embrace the cloud on their terms to maintain control of their data across any cloud environment. The addition of the SteelStore cloud-integrated storage product line will now provide enterprises with the ability to efficiently and securely backup business data to whichever cloud option they choose.

The SteelStore product supports both NetApp and third-party storage infrastructures as well as a set of 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. 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 backup 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, Riverbed. “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 DR to the cloud.”

NetApp expects that the SteelStore product will be available during its fiscal third quarter of 2015.