DataDirectNetworks (DDN) & Western Digital announced that DDN would be buying Western Digital’s IntelliFlash division as part of a new partnership. This comes as something of a surprise, Western Digital updated their IntelliFlash lineup only a few months ago, as we covered in both June and July. DataDirect Networks (DDN) was founded in 1998 and is privately held. It provides block and file storage platforms as well as associated appliances and tools.
Western Digital plans to complete the sale later this calendar year. In addition to purchasing IntelliFlash from Western Digital for an undisclosed sum, DDN has also agreed to a sourcing agreement under which DDN will increase its purchase of Western Digital's HDD and SSD storage devices. At this time, DDN is claiming that it will further invest in an accelerated roadmap of the IntelliFlash line, but it has not yet provided any details about that.
While Western Digital still owns their ActiveScale cloud storage products, they’re actively looking for opportunities to sell it off so they can exit the storage system market entirely and focus on their storage platform business.
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