DDN is a company that, in more  than 20 years (was founded in 1998), has designed, developed, deployed and optimized systems, software and solutions which enable enterprises, service providers, universities and government agencies to generate more value and accelerate time to insight from their data and information, on premise and in the cloud. It’s one the the leader in the HPC market (2/3 of the top 500 supercomputers run on DDN), the largest private storage company in world, with double digit growth, still profitable and self funded.

During the last years DDN has enlarge its focus on AI and multicloud data management (and the new logo enfatize this shift).

But storage remain a core element, and now DDN has entered into a strategic partnership with Western Digital Corp. that includes an agreement to acquire Western Digital’s IntelliFlash business. Additionally, the companies will expand their existing relationship through a mutual global strategic sourcing agreement. DDN and Western Digital are committed to executing a smooth transition for customers and key stakeholders.

WD IntelliFlash storage family already derive from a previous acquisition: two years ago Western Digital has acquired Tegile Systems, an interesting provider of flash and persistent-memory storage solutions for enterprise data center applications.

But has not push this product family enough (to be honest they build also a powerful NVMe solution, but they lack in selling and opportunities).

On the other side, building on its decades-long foundation in the most demanding data environments, DDN has greatly expanded its business over the past 12 months by acquiring market leading enterprise and multicloud technologies.

This latest acquisition of IntelliFlash extends DDN’s leadership as a value-add provider of AI and multicloud data management solutions. The strategic partnership also expands the relationship between DDN and Western Digital, enabling increasingly compelling storage solutions with new performance and cost innovations.

DDN and Western Digital will be actively working to deliver a seamless transition for customers and partners with a promise of ongoing product availability and continuity of support. Existing IntelliFlash customers will benefit from DDN’s focus on storage and data management challenges, deep expertise in service and support and its rich, broad technology portfolio. DDN will further invest in an accelerated roadmap of the IntelliFlash line and will be engaging closely with IntelliFlash customers to hear about business challenges and opportunities where DDN can innovate once the acquisition is complete.

Will be interesting see how this new line will fit in the already rich storage proposal of DDN.

Andrea Mauro

Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.