Enterprise software specialist Red Hat (News - Alert) has agreed to acquire open source storage vendor Gluster for approximately $136 million in cash.

The deal, expected to close later this month, will allow Red Hat to break into the software-based storage market, which has exploded recently as enterprises attempt to manage large pools of unstructured data such as log files, virtual machines, email and video.

The hallmark of Gluster's product line is its software-only, scale-out storage system, dubbed GlusterFS, which enables enterprises to combine computing resources and commodity storage into a centrally-managed, cloud-based storage pool.

Brian Stevens, CTO and vice president, Worldwide Engineering at Red Hat, said that the old way of storing files – where companies dump everything into a single DBMS residing on an internal corporate SAN – has become "unwieldy and impractical" due to the growth of unstructured data.

"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," Stevens noted in a statement. "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."

Gluster says that its solutions enable enterprises to store troves of unstructured data at a mitigated cost by combining commodity economics with a scale-out approach. Gluster maintains an impressive list of clients, including Pandora (News - Alert), Box.net, Deutche Bank, Samsung and Autodesk. The company claims to have a presence in technology, government, media, finance, energy, education and other fields.

For Red Hat, the $136 million acquisition seems like a strong move. The Raleigh North Carolina-based company will be breaking into a thriving space with a move that is projected to have no negative material impact on its financial guidance for the year. Red Hat expects the Gluster unit to begin growing revenue next year with a software subscription model.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves