RALEIGH, N.C., April 30 — Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Inktank, a leading provider of scale-out, open source storage systems. Inktank’s flagship technology, Inktank Ceph Enterprise, delivers world class object and block storage software to enterprises deploying public or private clouds, including many early adopters of OpenStack clouds. Combined with Red Hat’s existing GlusterFS-based storage offering, the addition of Inktank positions Red Hat as the leading provider of open software-defined storage across object, block and file system storage.

In a recently-published assessment of the software-defined storage market, IDC’s Ashish Nadkarni, the firm’s research director for Storage Systems wrote: “Software-defined platforms will continue to grow faster than any other market segment in the file- and object-based storage market. This growth will primarily be driven by a rich and diverse set of data-intensive use cases across multiple industries and geographies.”

Founded in 2012, Inktank’s main objective has been to drive the widespread adoption of Ceph, a scalable, open source, software-defined storage system that runs on commodity hardware. Ceph was developed by Inktank’s founder and chief technology officer, Sage Weil, and is a replacement for legacy storage systems and provides a unified solution for cloud computing environments. Inktank’s primary goal has been to help customers scale their storage to the exabyte-level and beyond in a cost-effective way. Inktank has provided customers with expertise, processes, tools and support with their enterprise subscription and service offerings. Inktank’s customers include Cisco, CERN and Deutsche Telekom, and its partners include Alcatel-Lucent and Dell. The company has offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Red Hat has agreed to acquire Inktank, a privately-held company, for approximately $175 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments at closing. As part of the transaction, Red Hat will assume unvested Inktank equity outstanding on the closing date and issue certain equity retention incentives. The transaction is expected to close in May 2014, subject to customary closing conditions.

Red Hat does not anticipate that the transaction will have a material effect on its financial performance for the first quarter of its fiscal year ending February 28, 2015 (“fiscal 2015”). Red Hat is also reaffirming its fiscal 2015 guidance, provided on its March 27, 2014 earnings call, for revenue, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP earnings per share and operating cash flow. Non-GAAP operating margin and EPS estimates exclude the impact of stock-based compensation and amortization of acquisition-related intangibles.

Webcast

Brian Stevens, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Red Hat, and Sage Weil, founder and chief technology officer, Inktank, will host a webcast to discuss this announcement today, April 30, 2014, at 12 p.m. EDT. Following remarks, press and analysts are invited to participate in a live question and answer session.

To join the webcast or view the replay after the event, visit vts.inxpo.com.

“With a shared commitment to open source, open standards and customer success, joining forces with Red Hat is something we are all very excited about. We believe our open storage technologies will be critical in the management of data in the coming era of cloud computing. Joining Red Hat will no doubt lead to tremendous innovation that will ultimately serve the industry well and answer the demand for open storage solutions fully integrated with existing and emerging data center architectures such as OpenStack,” said Sage Weil, founder and CTO, Inktank.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Inktank to the Red Hat family. They have built an incredibly vibrant community that will continue to be nurtured as we work together to make open the de facto choice for software-defined storage. Inktank has done a brilliant job assembling a strong ecosystem around Ceph and we look forward to expanding on this success together. The strength of these world-class open storage technologies will offer compelling capability as customers move to software-based scale-out storage systems,” said Brian Stevens, executive vice president and CTO, Red Hat.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at www.redhat.com.

About Inktank

Inktank is transforming storage with Ceph, the massively scalable, open source, software-defined storage system that radically improves the economics and management of data management. Launched by leading Ceph developers, Inktank’s mission is to help enterprises use Ceph to break free of expensive and proprietary storage systems to decrease their storage costs, increase their operational flexibility, and effectively manage their rapidly growing data. Inktank Ceph Enterprise™ is the market’s first enterprise-grade, dedicated Ceph product offering that delivers everything needed to confidently run a production Ceph storage cluster at scale. In addition, Inktank provides best-in-class professional services and Ceph training.

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Source: Red Hat