Data storage market stays hot
EMC hosted more than 4,000 visitors from over 60 countries at its recent annual EMC World event held in Boston. If the attendance is any indication, data storage vendors and software providers alike will be in business for a long time.
Storage is a hotbed of activity right now, with a recent InformationWeek poll showing half of the 300 business-technology professionals surveyed listing storage area networks among projects planned for deployment in 2006. A combination of increasing amounts of data too valuable to dispose of, but not necessarily required on a daily basis, and demanding federal requirements for data shepherding have area vendors jumping on the storage bandwagon."People love to store information and have data at their fingertips," says
Tom Lynch, chief intelligence officer
at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. "Additionally, they want it off site with the ability to get it back when they want it."
Plentiful options for storage needs
Traditional legacy infrastructure would have stored data on tapes, and shipped the tapes to an off site location for safekeeping. However, the long term reliability of tapes and the cost of storing and shipping them has triggered advances in storage techniques, such as disk-based storage and virtual tape libraries. Each method of storage has its benefits, as well as area firms that provide the service.
Diligent Technologies, a Framingham-based storage firm, targets Fortune 1000 and Global 5000 companies. Diligent offers a disk-based solution, which was not always a preferred option because it failed to offer a cost savings over tape. Diligent uses a new technology that eliminates data redundancy. By not storing data that has already been stored in one form or another, disk-based storage now offers better quality and capacity than tapes.
"Diligent is the only company that has shown it can offer this type of storage in the high-end market," says CEO Doron Kempel.
Headquartered in Marlboro, SEPATON also provides the no-tape solution, but through a virtual tape method it believes outperforms strictly disk-based alternatives. SEPATON offers its clients a turn-key appliance that "masks" data to appear like a tape library to backup servers, so no major rehab of network infrastructure is required. Focusing on Fortune 1000 companies with backup and recovery needs, SEPATON has seen huge growth over the past year.
"SEPATON experienced greater than three times revenue growth in 2005 over 2004," says Miklos Sandorfi, chief technology officer. "Virtual tape libraries are being deployed in larger and larger numbers."
Still other firms focus on data security. That’s a new business focus for EMC, as noted by CEO Joe Tucci at the company’s April EMC World event. EMC joins firms like Tizor Systems, a data protection firm based in Maynard, which offers auditing services for enterprise-class storage firms harboring sensitive information. A Tizor device knows who is accessing data and how often they do.
"These companies have data that’s valuable to its owner," says Marv Goldschmitt, vice president of business development. He adds that no company wants to be the next CardSystems, a credit card processing firm that exposed the private info of 40 million card accounts in a data breach.
While Tizor offers peace of mind for those firms making a business storing personal data, concerns about letting go of that data still keeps area experts on the fence.
"It’s better to manage your own data because you’re responsible for its security," says WPI’s Lynch.
Jeffrey T. Lavery can be reached at jlavery@wbjournal.com
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments