Red Hat buys open-source storage firm Gluster

Linux distributor looks to extend big data and cloud computing capabilities

Open-source stalwart Red Hat has signed a $136m (£88.5m) deal to buy storage company Gluster.

The privately owned Gluster has developed an open-source distributed file system designed for so-called big data applications and cloud computing environments. It counts Pandora, Box.net and Samsung among its customers.

"The explosion of big data and the new paradigm of cloud computing are converging, forcing IT to re-think storage investments that are cost-effective, manageable and scale for the future," said Brian Stevens, chief technology officer at Red Hat.

"Our customers are looking for software-based storage solutions that manage their file-based data on-premise, in the cloud and bridging between the two.”

Big data is the latest industry buzzphrase, which defines a set of information management tools and techniques for managing volumes of data that dwarf traditional data warehouses and provide analysis of that information in real time.

“With unstructured data growth – such as log files, virtual machines, email, audio, video and documents – the 90s paradigm of forcing everything into expensive, single-system DBMS residing on an internal corporate SAN has become unwieldy and impractical," said Stevens.

The big data trend has not gone unnoticed by database vendors. Earlier this week database giant Oracle unveiled a new big data appliance...