Amazon buys out data migration start-up Amiato in hush-hush acquisition

Hush-hush data migration technology purchase intended to help customers move from MongoDB to Amazon cloud

Amazon has acquired Amiato, a data migration start-up, in a hushed-up deal intended to provide Amazon Web Services (AWS) with the skills to make it easier for clients to migrate to AWS platforms.

A report by newswire Bloomberg claims Amazon acquired the company last year and rolled it into AWS. Amiato had made tools to help organisations migrate data from a variety of databases - including popular MongoDB - into Redshift, a cloud-based data warehousing service.

However, according to Bloomberg's sources, the acquisition was intended for the know-how of the company's staff rather than the software and services it offered. The aim, suggests Bloomberg, is that the company's staff will continue developing migration services for Redshift.

Prior to the acquisition, the company had received $2m (£1.4m) in venture capital funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Data Collective, and Ignition Partners, among others.

"Amazon doesn't acquire many companies for AWS, instead investing heavily in internal research and development. Acquisition targets typically are small companies that fill a particular niche, such as 2lemetry, an Internet of Things firm Amazon purchased last month, and Israeli semiconductor start-up Annapurna Labs, which the online retailer agreed to buy in January," claims Bloomberg.

Redshift enables organisations to set up their own data warehousing systems from a price of 25 US cents per hour, with no long-term contract or upfront costs. A one-petabyte Redshift data warehouse, meanwhile, would cost about $1,000 per terabyte per year, according to AWS - considerably less than buying similar capabilities in off-the-shelf packaged software.

AWS, which the online retailing giant started in 2006, chalked up sales of $1.67bn in the company's most recent quarter, and Amazon has promised to break out and report AWS sales separately in future.