LeftHand Networks is right in my back yard. A company up in Boulder, Colorado, they're known as one of the big IT vendor powerhouses in this part of the world. But in hearing last week that they've been bought out by HP, it makes me wonder: Is today's recession the source of the consolidation bonanza we've been seeing lately?

Notwithstanding the reason, this merger looks like a good thing to me. LeftHand builds some of the most stable and fully-featured iSCSI storage devices I've had the pleasure of working with. Built into their boxes are high-end technology you used to only see with the big players like EMC such as replication, thin provisioning, enhanced backups, snapshotting, and the works. If you're considering a virtualization project and need stable yet expandable storage, definitely drop LeftHand (well, HP) a line.

Reading from the press release, it appears that LeftHand's addition to HP's stable will focus on a gap they had within the mid-market:

With the addition of LeftHand Networks, HP will add midrange offerings to its suite of iSCSI solutions. Customer needs at the low end of the market will be met with the HP StorageWorks All-in-One Storage System (AiO) and HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) product lines. The high end will be addressed by the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) line. Customers will further benefit since LeftHand Networks' solutions are already certified to work with a wide range of HP products, including HP ProLiant servers, HP BladeSystem infrastructure, HP ProCurve Networking and HP Insight Control management software.

Read the whole press release here.