IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Storwize, a privately held company based in Marlborough, MA. Storwize provides real-time data compression technology to help clients reduce physical storage requirements by up to 80% (1), which improves efficiency and lowers the cost of making data available for analytics and other applications. The acquisition is anticipated to close in the third quarter of 2010, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Storwize has over one hundred customers such as Mobileye, Polycom Israel, Shopzilla, Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Construction across a wide range of industries including energy, manufacturing, finance, insurance, telecommunications and cloud services.

With Storwize, IBM is acquiring storage technology that is unique in the industry in that it can compress primary data, or data that clients are actively using, of multiple types — from files to virtualization images to databases — in real-time while maintaining performance. This is in contrast to other storage compression technologies that only compress secondary or backup data. By compressing primary data, Storwize users can store up to five times more data using the same amount of storage, preventing storage sprawl and lowering power and cooling costs.

This is important now more than ever as the world’s data already vastly exceeds available storage space and enterprise demand for storage capacity worldwide is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 43% from 2008 to 2013, according to IDC (2).

Compression shrinks data so files and databases take up less space. Storwize’s Random Access Compression Engine (RACE) is based on the industry-standard compression algorithm and uses Storwize’s patented technology for real-time data compression without any performance degradation.

With Storwize, analytics applications can improve decision making by scanning many more years of historical data from multiple sources without the need to add additional storage equipment. Compressing data in real-time can also help make data available up to four times faster for transaction workloads (3).

Running Storwize data compression does not affect business and IT processes or other applications and does not require special skills to maintain. Product installation can be completed in as little as four hours, with little or no downtime.

“Real-time data compression helps address a significant client need — making it affordable to analyze and make sense of massive amounts of data in order to provide new services,” said Brian Truskowski, general manager, IBM System Storage and Networking. “By adding Storwize to our innovative portfolio of storage solutions, IBM is better equipped than ever to help clients handle growing quantities of data and make more of it available for analytics.”

“IBM has the strongest vision for the future direction of storage and we are pleased to become a part of that vision,” said Ed Walsh, CEO, Storwize. “Our customers will benefit significantly as our talented employees and innovative storage solutions merge with IBM’s world-wide reach in sales, service and research and development.”

Storwize joins other key IBM storage acquisitions and innovations that improve storage efficiency and analytics, including:

ProtecTIER deduplication technology that can be used together with compression technology to significantly improve storage efficiency.
The XIV high-end disk storage architecture that provides the performance needed to make data quickly available for analysis.
IBM’s Scale-out Network Attached Storage (SONAS), invented by IBM Research to support multiple petabytes of storage in a single file system.
The IBM System Storage Easy Tier feature, which uses ongoing performance monitoring to move only the most active data to faster solid-state drives (SSDs) on IBM’s flagship DS8700 disk storage system.

The Storwize appliance will work with popular NAS systems, including IBM N series and SONAS, as well as non-IBM NAS systems from EMC, HP, NetApp and others. Storwize real-time compression can provide added value to clients already using data deduplication, thin provisioning and other storage efficiency technologies.

This acquisition continues IBM’s investment in real-time compression, which has been proven for DB2 and Informix to reduce the overall total cost of information ownership by up to 80%.

WebHostEditor.com – SoftLayer Technologies®, the innovative on-demand data center services provider, will be a gold sponsor of HostingCon 2010 in Austin, Texas, July 19-21 at the Austin Convention Center. Nathan Day, Chief Technology Officer, Sam Fleitman, Chief Operations Officer, and George Karidis, Chief Strategy Officer for SoftLayer, are scheduled to speak during the event. The company will also exhibit on the trade show floor.

HostingCon is a leading annual conference and trade show for the hosted services industry, bringing professionals together to learn about the latest news, ideas, and technology. This year’s projected attendance is 1,500 professionals from over 30 countries.

Mr. Day will present a session entitled “Meeting Changing Business Needs with On-Demand Infrastructure,” at 2pm, Tuesday, July 20. The discussion will focus on how computing and network resources can be optimized to give end users flexible configurations, delivery schedules, and budgets.

Mr. Fleitman will appear on a panel entitled “Disruptive Strategies and Technologies: Avoid Them or Lose Ground,” at 3pm, Wednesday, July 21. Lead by Dan Ephraim of Digital Realty Trust and Daniel Golding of DH Capital, the panel will discuss the dynamics of owning versus leasing data center facilities and the economic merits of both options.

Mr. Karidis will participate in the conference’s capstone panel entitled “What Tomorrow Brings—Open Q&A to Prepare for the Future,” at 3pm, Wednesday, July 21. The panel will include representatives from other industry-leading firms including Parallels, Microsoft, UK2 Group, Tier1 Research, and CloudLinux.

“HostingCon is a highlight of our calendar—it’s one of the best opportunities for us to connect with our customers and partners face to face,” said Mr. Karidis. “We’re proud that our presence and role at the show has grown each year that we’ve participated. And this year, we’re particularly excited about everything that the week has in store.”

SoftLayer representatives will be available during all exhibition hours at booth #213.

Federal agents recently swooped in and seized the assets of accused movie-pirating site operators.

On Wednesday, federal agents took control of at least seven sites, including Movies-Links.tv, Now-Movies.com, TVShack.net, Filespump.com, Planetmoviez.com, ZML.com, ThePirateCity.org, Ninjavideo.net, and NinjaThis.net. More than a dozen bank, investment, and advertising accounts were seized, and authorities served search warrants on residences in several different states.

Authorities are searching for operators of the sites as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, according to Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The crimes that the operators are accused of committing weren’t clear, but some of the sites are accused of distributing film copies prior to their theatrical release.

As of 3 p.m. PDT, some of the sites were still operating, but government officials said they anticipated the sites would come under government control within hours.

The investigation involved multiple law enforcement groups, including the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and ICE, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security.

Last week, Biden and Victoria Espinel, the U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator, told reporters that they wanted to send a message to counterfeiters and pirates that this administration was intent on protecting the nation’s intellectual property. Espinel directed a statement at those people who trafficked in phony goods or unauthorized music and movies: “We have committed to putting you out of business.”

ICE and the Department of Justice both suggested Wednesday that these types of seizures and investigations are just the beginning.

VegasNAP, one of the premier providers of colocation, disaster recovery and managed IT services in the western US, announced today the opening of its 14,000 square foot facility and datacenter. Located in the heart of Las Vegas, the facility includes a 6,500 square foot conditioned datacenter, less than 5 minutes from McCarran International Airport and the famous Las Vegas Strip.

After nine months of planning and construction, VegasNAP is now offering the opportunity for small to medium size businesses to leverage the reliability of a secure and affordable colocation and dedicated server facility as well as larger companies that have outgrown their present services.

“We feel it is important for IT services providers to take their time and find the most suitable plan for their technology needs,” said Rob Tyree, vice president and CTO of VegasNAP. “It is an important decision that they have to make and we work with each company individually, supplying only what they need, with the availability to grow their services as they grow their company.”

Providing a secure datacenter means allowing 24×7 access by clients, while protecting the entire complex with dual authentication access control, multiple CCTV cameras, 24×7 security monitoring and much more. Technical personnel will be available, 24×7, to provide support with all personal and company related issues.

“Security and uptime are our biggest priorities and is why, in addition to the security measures we are taking, we have incorporated the highest quality UPS and standby generator systems and test those systems frequently,” said Don Reed, president and CEO of VegasNAP.

In addition to colocation and dedicated server services, VegasNAP’s facility offers meeting room and storage accommodations to every client.

“We also keep various hardware supplies in stock, to provide instant repair to our leased equipment and can be made available for our clients who need hardware and software support,” said Tyree.

GoGrid announced today the opening of a new GoGrid data center in Ashburn, Virginia. GoGrid has chosen Equinix, Inc (Nasdaq: EQIX), a leading provider of global data center services as its data center partner as it continues to expand operations.

“We’re pleased to announce that GoGrid cloud computing services are now available from within our Ashburn, Virginia campus,” said Vince DiMemmo, general manager of Cloud and IT Services at Equinix. “Infrastructure on-demand is something our customers expect to be able to buy as they architect and deploy their Web and IT applications with us, and we’re pleased to add GoGrid as a cloud computing partner supplier.”

The new GoGrid facility is a comprehensive end-to-end hosting environment solution, complete with state-of-the-art environmental controls, power and security systems, and access to more than 165 network suppliers. Multiple interconnection options enable GoGrid cloud computing services to be readily accessible by its customers.

“The decision to expand GoGrid was a direct response to our customers and the market,” said GoGrid CEO & Co-Founder, John Keagy. “We are successfully executing our expansion strategy and securing an East Coast presence is critical for us to scale and capture a significant piece of the fast growing cloud market. We are very excited to be partnering with a leader like Equinix and deployed within their customer-rich Ashburn campus to help fuel the continued growth of GoGrid.”

GoGrid customers who deploy GoGrid Cloud (virtual) servers in multiple data centers receive a single invoice allowing for simplified financial insight into multiple infrastructure locations. Usage by data center will appear as line-item details. Also, the GoGrid API has been updated to allow for programmatic control of objects and appliances in multiple data centers.