IBM Acquires Storage De-Duplication Company Diligent

IBM on Friday said it has acquired Diligent Technologies, a maker of software that increases storage efficiency through elimination of data duplication. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Rumors have been floating around for weeks that IBM would acquire Diligent, as the technology it provides moves into the mainstream. IBM rival Sun Microsystems, for example, said this month that it's adding so-called "deduplication" technology in its storage products, rather than reselling the technology from others.

Data centers waste storage space by holding multiple copies of e-mail in servers and duplicate copies of the same file in archive media. Technology from Diligent and competitors like FalconStor provides single-instance storage where a single copy of a message or file is held.

Diligent software is integrated with server and storage infrastructures to prevent de-duplication, IBM said. The technology, which is particularly suited for midsize and large companies, will become a part of IBM's storage portfolio and complement backup and recovery applications, such as IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. Industries served by Diligent include health care, financial services, telecommunications, oil and gas, consumer electronics, manufacturing, and entertainment.

Diligent has about 100 employees and more than 200 customers in North and South America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. The company's employees will join IBM's System Storage business unit within the systems and technology group.

Diligent is the third storage-related acquisition for IBM since January, when it bought XIV, a manufacturer of high-performance digital storage systems. This month, IBM announced plans to acquire FilesX, a maker of data-protection software.