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NetApp hybrid cloud infrastructure management hits the Spot
NetApp makes its third cloud-related acquisition of 2020; the company says it will buy Spot, which uses machine learning to optimize cloud capacity and reduce infrastructure costs.
Storage hardware is how NetApp made its name. Now NetApp hybrid cloud infrastructure is turning out to be a broader aspect of the file vendor's reputation.
NetApp has signed a letter of intent to acquire Spot, an Israeli startup with a software suite that analyzes hybrid cloud capacity and automates management. Spot's Cloud Analyzer uses machine learning to help DevOps teams change throughput capacity at runtime. Spot provides price comparisons on serverless computing to automate IT management and manage costs.
NetApp hybrid cloud
NetApp OnTap will integrate Spot for optimized storage. NetApp and Spot share mutual customers, although they did not have a formal partnership. Anthony Lye, a senior vice president of NetApp's public cloud services, said Spot solves capacity planning for NetApp hybrid cloud-native applications.
"We're entering a time where an application can decide on the infrastructure it needs to meet its service level. Most of the time, the infrastructure is dictated to the application, which leads to waste" from overprovisioning, Lye said.
NetApp said it expects regulators to approve the deal within 60 to 90 days. The companies did not disclose financial terms, but Lye said published reports that put the price at $450 million were wrong. Spot CEO Amiram Shachar is expected to join NetApp as an executive.
Shachar founded Spot with Liran Polak in 2015. The company originally was known as Spotinst, a reference to how it taps unused Amazon EC2 Spot compute instances in the public cloud.
In his blog post on Spot's website, Shachar said Spot will continue selling and supporting its current products after the deal closes. He expects to deliver Spot's roadmap faster as part of NetApp.
"Very rarely does a startup company have the opportunity to be acquired, preserve its brand, rapidly scale resources, and build something way bigger for its current and future customers," he wrote.
Spot marks the third NetApp hybrid cloud acquisition of 2020. The newly launched NetApp Virtual Desktop Service is based on its acquisition in April of VDI vendor CloudJumper. In March, NetApp bought Talon Storage and use Talon's Fast software to share file storage from the cloud with branch offices.
