Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd,, has acquired REAN Cloud LLC, a global cloud systems integrator, managed services provider (MSP), and solutions developer of cloud-native applications. The buyout target's areas of expertise include big data, machine learning and emerging internet of things (IoT) spaces.
REAN Cloud, founded in 2013, is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner and Microsoft Azure Silver Partner. The company’s REAN Cloud Accelerator Platform enables “highly automated, intelligent, scalable, and secure cloud adoption and managed services,” according to REAN.
Last year, REAN Cloud acquired 47Lining, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner in the big data space. The deal gave REAN a larger presence in big data analytics, IoT, and machine learning. It also allowed them to deliver customized solutions for IoT analytics, predictive analytics, and machine learning.
Contract Question Marks
Ironically, this deal comes just one day after the Pentagon reopened its search for a cloud provider following the cancellation of its $65 million contract with REAN Cloud. The Government Accountability Office in May recommended that the Defense Department cancel the fast-track cloud migration contract.
REAN’s competitors bristled at the announcement when, in February, the company was awarded a $950 million “other transaction authority,” or OTA, contract for the job. Many believed the reward didn’t live up to full-and-open competition standards under federal acquisition guidelines while others thought the deal would give too much of an advantage to REAN Cloud’s partner, Amazon Web Services.
At any rate, in March the Pentagon lowered the award to $65 million before dropping it entirely less than three months later. There’s no word on whether the deal with Hitachi Vantara had any bearing on the decision.
Looking Ahead
According to Hitachi Vantara, the acquisition of REAN will help it accelerate secure enterprise cloud adoption across multi-cloud environments and strengthen its ability to manage and operate traditional applications alongside emerging workloads in AI and machine learning.
REAN Cloud’s founders will continue leading the company as part of Hitachi Vantara’s Solutions and Services organization. It also appears that REAN’s existing workforce will remain in place, bolstered by Hitachi Vantara’s “global delivery capabilities and leading digital solutions,” the company said.
The transaction is expected to close later this year. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
