Big Data Consolidation: WANdisco Buys AltoStor For $5.1M To Beef Up Its Apache Hadoop Cred

A little consolidation in the world of big data and Apache Hadoop development: WANdisco, a UK/U.S.-based provider of collaboration software that focuses on the open-source Apache Subversion revision control system, has announced the completion of its acquisition of Palo-Alto-based AltoStor, which will help it further develop its big data products. Publicly-traded WANdisco is paying $5.1 million, with $3.6 million of that in shares and $1.5m in cash, “payable on completion as a signing bonus,” the company said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

WANdisco notes that AltoStor’s founders, Konstantin Shvachko and Jagane Sundar, who both have worked at Yahoo in the past, were among the “core creators” of Apache Hadoop, the big data technology driving the databases of Yahoo, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon and eBay. Shvachko had also helped implement Hadoop at eBay, where he had been principal big data architect.

As big data continues to be a hot topic with enterprises, WANdisco — which stands for “Wide Area Network Distributed Computing” — is buying Palo Alto-based AltoStor to speed up its time to market with new products.

“The AltoStor acquisition will enable WANdisco to launch products quickly into the highly-lucrative Big Data market,” said WANdisco Chairman and CEO David Richards in a statement. “Combining our patented technology with AltoStor’s Big Data platform will provide us with a significant competitive advantage and provide organizations with a more reliable approach for managing big data.”

WANdisco says the two founders will be joining the company in its Big Data product team, with Sundar joining as CTO & vice president of engineering for Big Data and Shvachko as the chief architect of Big Data.

The co-founders say that they decided to exit to WANdisco at the same time that they were being courted by VCs and other software firms.

“Prior to this acquisition, we had a number of options including venture capital and acquisition approaches from several large Silicon Valley software companies desiring to enhance their Big Data products,” said Shvachko in a statement. “When we first spoke with WANdisco, we recognized immediately that WANdisco’s patented replication technology, combined with AltoStor’s products and knowledge, could create a compelling product offering that virtually every enterprise looking to deploy Hadoop could utilize.”

Full release below.

WANdisco Completes Acquisition of Pioneering Big Data Company AltoStor

Acquisition of Hadoop Expertise Will Accelerate WANdisco’s Product Development in Fast-Growing Big Data Market

SAN RAMON, CA and PALO ALTO, CA–(Marketwire – November 19, 2012) – WANdisco (LSE: WAND), a leading provider of global collaboration software to the software development industry, announced today it has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley-based software company AltoStor. This acquisition underscores WANdisco’s drive into the Big Data solutions market, forecasted by analyst firm Wikibon to grow 58% between 2012 and 2017 and from $5 billion to over $50 billion in the same timeframe.

AltoStor is a small, pioneering firm with a deep expertise in the Big Data market. Its founders, Dr. Konstantin Shvachko and Jagane Sundar, are among the core Apache Hadoop creators, developers and on-going contributors. Hadoop is a proven open source Big Data technology that is the backbone of many of the world’s largest and most important databases utilized by companies such as Yahoo, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon and eBay.

“The AltoStor acquisition will enable WANdisco to launch products quickly into the highly-lucrative Big Data market,” said WANdisco Chairman and CEO David Richards. “Combining our patented technology with AltoStor’s Big Data platform will provide us with a significant competitive advantage and provide organizations with a more reliable approach for managing big data. The support AltoStor’s founders have for the WANdisco story is an important part of this deal.”

By applying WANdisco’s patented “active-active replication” technology, currently being deployed to enable faster, more efficient software development, to Big Data, businesses could take steps to minimize data loss and realize zero downtime in operating large, mission-critical databases. WANdisco plans to announce the availability of its first Big Data-targeted solution in Q1 2013.

In addition, the AltoStor founders will join WANdisco and play a leading role in WANdisco’s Big Data product development and rollout. Shvachko and Sundar have unparalleled expertise in Big Data, and specifically Hadoop, which they helped create as part of a 12-person team at Yahoo. More recently, Shvachko implemented Hadoop at eBay where he was the Principal Big Data Architect. Sundar will join as chief technology officer & vice president of engineering for Big Data and Shvachko as the chief architect of Big Data.

“Prior to this acquisition, we had a number of options including venture capital and acquisition approaches from several large Silicon Valley software companies desiring to enhance their Big Data products,” said Shvachko. “When we first spoke with WANdisco, we recognized immediately that WANdisco’s patented replication technology, combined with AltoStor’s products and knowledge, could create a compelling product offering that virtually every enterprise looking to deploy Hadoop could utilize.”

WANdisco will host a live webinar on December 11 at 10:00 a.m. PST where Richards, Shvachko and Sundar will discuss the acquisition and WANdisco’s direction in the Big Data Market. For more information and to register, visit The Future of Big Data for the Enterprise.