Dell Acquires Storage Deduplication Vendor Ocarina Networks

Dell has expanded its storage technology portfolio to include more compression and deduplication with the acquisition of Ocarina Networks. Dell’s move to up its game in this area comes as  companies focus on getting more out of their storage, driven by the exponential growth of data retention requirements.

Most big technology vendors have a foot in the deduplication market, including HP, IBM, Symantec, EMC and others. NetApp paid a premium to acquire Data Domain last year after winning a bidding war with EMC over who would buy the deduplication vendor.

Dell did not disclose terms of its agreement to acquire Ocarina Networks, but said that the company’s content-aware optimization technology lets customers dramatically reduce storage space requirements and the amount of redundant data.

“This is a great opportunity for the Ocarina technology, and for Ocarina customers and partners. Combining Ocarina’s capability with Dell’s leading storage portfolio, we plan to move the Ocarina solution well beyond what you’ve seen with other deduplication offerings to include ‘end-to-end’ optimization. This brings deduplication to not only primary storage, but also to key storage workflows including backup, replication, migration and tiering,” said Murli Thirumale, CEO, Ocarina Networks, in a statement.

Dell said it expects to close the deal by the end of the month. Ocarina, founded in 2007, will remain in its current location in San Jose.