Dell Inc. on Monday said it has agreed to acquire 3PAR Inc., a data storage company, for about 1.15 billion U.S. dollars.

The transaction, already approved by the board of directors of each company, is expected to close before the end of this year, the two sides said.

3PAR is a provider of highly-virtualized storage solutions called “utility storage,” designed to be the storage foundation for utility computing that enables information technology organizations to deliver software and hardware as a service through server and storage virtualization.

3PAR’s products enable organizations “to treat storage as a utility — allowing them to use and pay for only the capacity and performance they need, and only when they use it,” Dell and 3PAR said in a joint statement announcing the deal.

“With Dell we combine a powerful, virtualized storage platform with an outstanding distribution network to deliver this value to an even broader set of customers,” noted David Scott, chief executive officer of 3PAR.

Founded in 1999, 3PAR is now headquartered in Fremont in the U. S. state of California.

Dell said it plans to maintain and invest in additional engineering and sales capability at 3PAR, adding that “there are no plans to move the current operations.”