Microsoft has announced plans to acquire Avere Systems, a hybrid cloud data storage company based in Pittsburgh. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2008, Avere Systems helps enterprises blend on-premises and public cloud data storage, while offering a mix of software and hardware-based services. Though many companies have already gone all-in on the cloud, there are benefits to keeping some things “in-house” — it enables faster data-transfer speeds, for example, and it can offer greater peace of mind in terms of privacy. Adopting a hybrid approach allows some tasks to be managed on a company’s premises, while other tasks — particularly those that may require significant processing power — can be managed in the cloud.
Notably, Avere Systems already counts both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google’s Cloud Platform as cloud partners, but not Microsoft.
Avere had raised around $86 million in equity funding since its inception, including a $14 million tranche less than a year ago that saw Google jump on board as a new investor. But it’s perhaps safe to assume that once this acquisition is complete, Avere Systems will be switching entirely to Microsoft’s cloud service.
“By bringing together Avere’s storage expertise with the power of Microsoft’s cloud, customers will benefit from industry-leading innovations that enable the largest, most complex high-performance workloads to run in Microsoft Azure,” said Jason Zander, corporate vice president at Microsoft Azure. “We are excited to welcome Avere to Microsoft and look forward to the impact their technology and the…
