Data management software company StorCentric Inc. said today it has acquired the flash storage software provider Violin Systems LLC for an undisclosed price.

StorCentric is already a strong player when it comes to block storage and file storage software, and the acquisition of Violin means that it can add high-performance NVMe storage software to its extensive portfolio. The company says it now has the products in place to address the performance, scale and economic demands of just about any kind of enterprise storage workload.

Violin was at one time considered to be one of the hottest startups in the flash storage market. The company began its life as Violin Memory Inc. in 2005, emerging at a time when the data center industry began its shift to flash memory and solid-state drives.

Violin sold hardware at the time based on a unique flash memory technology that was known for working particularly well with network-attached storage. It also developed flash and dynamic RAM-based storage arrays for environments that require extremely fast processing and analysis of large data sets, and its systems were tremendously popular during the late 2000s.

Violin’s success sent it hurtling toward an initial public offering in September 2013, and it raised $162 million on its debut, pushing its valuation at close to $2 billion.

But the company fell into obscurity even faster. In less than three years, Violin’s flash offerings had been surpassed by competitors in the storage market that shifted their focus onto software that can run on commodity hardware.

Its stock collapsed, from $9 a share in 2013 to less than 75 cents a share by January 2016. The company was unable to save itself from bankruptcy and went out of business that year, before rising from the ashes as a new entity called Violin Systems in 2017.

The newly formed Violin Systems followed the industry lead and switched its focus to software too, developing a storage architecture that runs on both standard x86 servers and SSDs.

“Our vision at StorCentric is to offer a complete portfolio of data management technologies that support growing enterprises’ needs,” said StorCentric Chief Executive Mihir Shah. “Violin fits perfectly into our solutions roadmap, a mid-point between our Nexsan and Vexata all-flash offerings.”

Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Steve McDowell said StorCentric is the perfect example of a company that’s built by private equity, founded on the combined remains of various failed storage startups. He said the acquisition of Violin Systems is actually its sixth in the last two years, and that it’s a good fit for StorCentric as it’s clearly trying to bootstrap itself into a position from where it can service a cross-section of the enterprise storage market.

“Like StorCentric’s other acquisitions, Violin has good technology that hasn’t quite found success in mainstream markets,” McDowell said. “Violin’s flash-optimized software-defined storage makes a compelling addition to StorCentric’s portfolio. StorCentric will keep the legacy of Violin alive, while broadening it’s overall market reach. It’s a good deal for everyone involved.”

StorCentric said it will continue to invest in Violin’s all-flash technology development. It added that day-to-day sales contacts, operations and customer support at Violin will also remain intact to ensure a seamless integration.

Image: vectorpouch/Freepik