StorageCraft Acquires Exablox Scale-out Storage -

StorageCraft Technology has acquired Exablox in a bid to further help businesses "analyze, protect, and store their data." Financial terms were not disclosed. Both company websites have publicly confirmed the deal as of 9:45 a.m ET today.

StorageCraft itself was acquired in January 2016. The company's overhauled management team, led by SonicWall veteran Matt Medeiros, has diversified StorageCraft's data protection lineup and bolstered its partner program over the past year. The Exablox acquisition furthers those efforts.

Medeiros and Exablox CEO Doug Brockett (now president of StorageCraft) briefly confirmed the deal in this video:

Among the potential partner and product synergies between StorageCraft and Exablox:

Exablox produces flash- and HDD-based scale-out NAS storage solutions using an object storage architecture. Exablox OneBlox scale-out storage solutions support file serving capabilities for primary and secondary storage, including continuous and unlimited snapshots, inline deduplication, compression, and offsite replication, the company claims.
When combined with StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect software, partners can protect customer desktops, physical and virtual infrastructure – all in a single solution, StorageCraft Claims.

Exablox History, StorageCraft Future

Exablox raised $23 million in Series C funding in 2015. Brockett -- also a SonicWall Veteran -- explained the Exablox strategy in this podcast recorded shortly after the Series C funding.

Following the Exablox buyout, the StorageCraft product portfolio now includes:

Data Analytics – Allows partners to identify and prioritize critical data for protection and performance. It also identifies gaps in endpoint protection, the company says.
Data Protection –Allows partners to implement data protection policies that can trigger associated recovery mechanisms. Frequent backups and efficiently-located mission-critical data minimize recovery time and maximize uptime, the company says.
Data Storage – Allows partners to store all tiers of data with infinite scalability, the company asserts.

Meanwhile, StorageCraft has rapidly expanded and diversified its partner ecosystem over the past year. ChannelE2E will share more details about that shortly.

Backup, Disaster Recovery Competition

The overall backup and disaster recovery (BDR) market remains in growth mode. Multiple vendors have been blurring their storage, data protection and security platforms to better safeguard customers against business downtime, malware, ransomware and other emerging threats.

Major channel-centric moves over the past few months have included:

Acronis, led by former Parallels executives, jumpstarted R&D and extending into software-defined storage.
Autotask extended from PSA (professional services automation) and RMM( remote monitoring and management) into endpoint backup.
Barracuda Networks blurred the lines between its Intronis MSP and security offerings.
Carbonite acquired EVault and launched appliances to pursue midmarket partners and customers.
Continuum blurred the lines between backup, NOC (network operations center) and RMM (remote monitoring and management) services.
Datto emerged as a rare unicorn that's profitable, while also preparing a push from data protection to unified threat management (UTM) solutions. The effort has included key CXO hires.
SolarWinds MSP acquired LogicNow, which has a fast-growing BDR platform.
Zetta patented the company's direct-to-cloud backup service for customers and partners.