Commvault, a leading provider of
software for the management of data across cloud and on-premises environments,
today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire
software-defined storage
(SDS) innovator,
Hedvig, for
total consideration of $225 million, which includes the purchase price and
ongoing employee retention.
Gartner expects that, by 2023, software-defined
storage (SDS) instantiations of vendor storage OSs running in the cloud will
become the dominant method of building multi cloud storage infrastructures.
This move to cloud and multi cloud
environments, together with cloud native applications is driving competitive
advantage for companies of all sizes; yet the acceleration of data
fragmentation is negatively impacting business outcomes. This rapid data
growth, generated from a variety of sources stored both within on-premises
environments and in the cloud will continue to create significant governance,
security and management challenges.
"Multi cloud data management is a hard problem
for customers to solve, and that translates to value. Commvault's acquisition
of Hedvig is an astute strategic move that allows Commvault to differentiate
and enhance its offerings - which broadens its addressable market. We believe
this increases the value Commvault can bring to these increasingly complex
customer problems," said Crawford Del Prete, President, IDC.
"This acquisition demonstrates how Commvault is
leading the way towards the intersection of storage and data management," said
Sanjay Mirchandani, Commvault CEO. "We believe joining Hedvig's innovative
software-defined storage capabilities with Commvault's industry-leading data
protection reduces fragmentation and leapfrogs other solutions in the market."
For years, Commvault has evolved its portfolio
to help thousands of long-standing customers of all sizes globally, protect,
manage and use their data more effectively. This is demonstrated by the
600-plus petabytes of data managed by Commvault software in the cloud today.
Hedvig drives significant operational
efficiency, addresses the data sovereignty problems stemming from data
governance laws and enables hybrid cloud and multi cloud capabilities natively.
Operational efficiency is achieved via complete protocol consolidation (block,
file and object storage) on a single platform.
"Being completely software based, the Hedvig
platform can span multiple data centers across multiple physical geographies
including disparate cloud environments," said Avinash Lakshman, Hedvig CEO.
"This may be the most comprehensive solution ever unleashed into enterprise
data centers and public cloud environments."
Hedvig was founded in 2012 by Avinash Lakshman,
the inventor of Apache Cassandra and one of the inventors of Amazon Dynamo. The
proposed acquisition is expected to close in Commvault's fiscal third quarter,
subject to certain closing conditions. The transaction is expected to be
slightly dilutive to Commvault's FY'20 non-GAAP EPS and accretive to FY'21
non-GAAP EPS.
"Hedvig's technology is in its prime. It has
been market tested and proven. We believe that the convergence of storage,
multi cloud, and cloud native technologies, combined with our leadership in
data management, will accelerate the movement towards modern applications built
on containers and microservices. Commvault will set the bar for the unification
of storage and data management for the future," added Mirchandani.