Blockbuster Deals Reshape The Storage World

Acquisitions have long been a part of the storage vendor landscape. But 2010 and the first part of 2011 saw an explosion of huge deals from almost every storage vendor. There are few independent options left, so it's time for infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals to re-evaluate their impressions of the megavendors and work to standardize on the broad offerings of a few selected options. These deals also move vendors into some new territories, so I&O executives should look at how application-centric storage solutions and bundled offerings with server, network, and applications might fit in their environment. In this report, we review 12 acquisitions that six storage vendors made. We highlight three lessons learned that will help I&O teams chart their 2011 storage strategies as the market rapidly changes.