Sun buys Cluster File Systems assets

Sun Microsystems' open source moves continue to snowball.

On Wednesday, Sun said it will acquire the majority of Cluster File Systems intellectual property and assets. This purchase includes the Lustre File System.

So what's it mean? Sun adds a parallel file system provider to its stable, extends support to Solaris and gets another avenue to wind up in your IT shop. Sun has said it is looking to buy software companies.

Sun added that it will deliver Lustre servers on top of the Solaris ZFS storage software, which was announced in July. ZFS has raised hackles from NetApp.

Now this deal isn't going to add up to huge financial gains, but complements Sun's storage business and shows the company's chops in high performance computing (HPC) and Linux clusters. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but they are immaterial to Sun's earnings.

The two parties have worked together on a few HPC projects including  "the fastest supercomputer in Asia at Tokyo Tech and we're now in the process of installing a 500+ TeraFlop and 1.7 PetaByte cluster at Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)."