Overland Upgrades Platform by Acquiring MaxiScale

San Diego, Calif.-based Overland Storage added a good way to scale out its existing storage platform Oct. 14 when it announced the acquisition of MaxiScale, which makes what it calls “limitlessly scalable” file serving and storage software.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but they rarely are in smaller transactions.

Overland is adding MaxiScale’s assets, intellectual property and key members of its engineering team. The company’s technology, which is currently being integrated into Overland’s file storage portfolio, provides cloud-scale storage capabilities that reduce capital and operational costs while improving performance and eliminating the need for forklift-type upgrades.

MaxiScale, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., was launched in September 2009 after two years in stealth mode. It manages file serving for Web 2.0 sites with applications that run financial services, health records, social networks and software as a service.

Its Flex Software Platform runs on commodity-type, x86-based servers and works with Windows, Linux, Unix and other operating systems.

As is common among data center software producers, MaxiScale’s idea is to improve performance and reduce cost, space and power requirements for Web companies that have to deal with large numbers of small files.

“Business adoption of Overland’s SnapServer line of data storage arrays is already strong due to its reputation for performance and reliability,” said Geoff Barrall, CTO and VP of engineering at Overland.

“The logical next step for us is to create a clustered scalable NAS forming a local cloud of storage. When the opportunity arose to acquire MaxiScale’s well-regarded technology, we took notice. MaxiScale’s architecture will provide our customers with the ability to scale hundreds of SnapServers into one unified pool of storage.”

“Overland scored with this deal — MaxiScale had some awesome technology. I’m glad it will finally be able to see the light of day,” said Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, an independent industry analyst firm.