Cisco Systems Ltd. is being linked to the potential acquisition of hyper-converged software storage upstart Springpath Inc., which has recently stopped answering the phone, dumped its PR agency AND canceled a number of press events.

The Register was the first to notice that something’s going down at Springpath, however it was unable to say exactly what that might be. Suspicions were first aroused when The Register learned that Springpath had abruptly canceled two previously scheduled events – namely this week’s IT Press Tour and next February’s Tech Field Day – without any explanation. Then a quick call to the startup’s PR agency Racepoint Global failed to yield any answers. All they could say was that they’re no longer working with Sunnyvale-based startup.

With rumors that Cisco might be interested in an acquisition having emerged earlier this year, the smart money would be on a such a move being announced soon. After all, Springpath, which only came out of stealth in February 2015, is certainly unique enough to give whoever buys it a cutting edge in what’s rapidly becoming an extremely convoluted software-defined data center (SDDC) space.

The key advantage of Springpath’s hyper-converged software is that it allows customers to have the server of their choice with the software as a layer on top of it. Springpath CEO Terry Cunningham spelled out the company’s offering, comparing it to a kind of Lego for the software-defined data center during an interview on theCUBE at #VMWorld 2015 last September

“It’s like Lego. We’ve got all these parts,” Cunningham said. “You can assemble it using the software defined layer of Springpath into whatever it is you want. You can aggregate, disaggregate, assemble here, disassemble, and it’s much more agile. That’s what’s really driving this whole market shift.”

*Watch Cunningham’s full interview on theCUBE here*

Another area where Springpath delivers value is its distributed file system, which supports classic block and file access methods, as well as new access methods that support object stores and Hadoop based applications, explained Moor Insights & Strategy’s principal analyst Patrick Moorhead in this Forbes article.

“I think Springpath is very differentiated in what is looking to be a very interesting SDDC world,” Moorhead wrote. “Springpath, versus the SDDC alternatives, promises to do more in more storage environments, do it on industry standard servers you procure, and do it on a pain-free subscription model.”

The Register speculates that if Cisco does acquire Springpath, it would give the networking giant a Unified Computing System (UCS) server-centric offering and converged system reference architecture deals in the storage array area. Of course, any such move would not go down too well with Simplivity, another disruptive hyper-converged player whose own relationship with Cisco would be extremely prejudiced by a Springpath acquisition.

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