|
== Summary ==
DDN provides storage systems for [[unstructured data]] and [[big data]], like [[AI]], analytics and high performance computing (HPC) environments, and is deployed at more than 10,000 customers acrossin enterprise, government and academia sectors. 50% of the world’s largest oil and gas facilities, 40% of leading investment banks, 30% of the automobile and aerospace manufacturers, and 70% of the Top 100 supercomputer customers are powered by DDN’s high-performance data storage products.
Although privately-held, DDN announced that it had achieved record-breaking annual revenue of $400 million and its highest ever profitability in 2020. With an install base of more than 11,000 customers and a loyal global network of resellers and distributors, DDN delivered 52 percent in revenue growth from 2018 to 2020 under its DDN and [[Tintri]] brands. 2020 was also the fifth consecutive year of customer expansion, and revenue and profitability growth for DDN.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mellor|first=Chris|date=2021-03-02|title=Your occasional storage digest with Arcserve, StorageCraft, DDN, and more|url=https://blocksandfiles.com/2021/03/02/enterprise-storage-news-digest-arcserve/|access-date=2021-03-16|website=Blocks and Files|language=en-GB}}</ref>
DDN provides storage solutions for applications such as [[cloud storage]] services, [[supercomputing]], [[life sciences]] and [[genomics]], seismic processing, financial service trade and risk analysis, film production, live television broadcast, manufacturing, and video surveillance.<ref name="buck">{{Cite news |title= Private billion buck HPC player? You're going to have to go public - and SOON |date= March 15, 2013 |work= The Register |author= Chris Mellor |url= https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/15/ddn_ipo/ |accessdate= October 12, 2016 }}</ref> ▼Founded in 1998, DDN has over 20 years of experience in delivering Data Storage and Intelligent Infrastructure Hardware and Software for AI and Analytics, Multi Cloud Data Management, Enterprise IT Workloads, Government and Academia, and High Performance Computing.
In September 2020, DDN was rated #1 ahead of IBM, Dell EMC, Netapp and HPE in the Intersect360 User Survey for Storage. DDN was rated #1 overall, #1 in technical delivery, #1 in operational execution and #1 in future purchase intentions.<ref>{{Cite web|last=September 24|last2=2020|title=HPC User Ratings Survey: Awareness, Satisfaction, Loyalty Across Processors, Servers, Storage, Cloud|url=https://www.intersect360.com/reports/hpc-user-ratings-survey-awareness-satisfaction-loyalty-across-processors-servers-storage-cloud|access-date=2021-03-16|website=www.intersect360.com|language=en}}</ref>
While global pandemic challenges touched the lives of everyone across the globe, DDN’s Intelligent Infrastructure solutions played a key role in helping many of the world’s leading science and research facilities identify, prevent, treat, and pave the path to eradicate COVID-19. DDN’s storage systems at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital<ref>{{Citation|title=ECA Best Use of HPC in Life Sciences – DDN|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRe0utRaa0A|language=en|access-date=2021-03-16}}</ref> and The Sanger Institute, part of the COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium (COG-UK),<ref>{{Citation|title=Best HPC Collaboration (Academia/Government/Industry) – DDN|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9sQb8k57xE|language=en|access-date=2021-03-16}}</ref> are just two examples of the many leading research facilities relying on DDN to intelligently process massive amounts of data and deliver significant scientific breakthroughs.
▲DDN provides storage solutions for applications such as [[cloud storage]] services, [[supercomputing]], [[life sciences]] and [[genomics]], seismic processing, financial service trade and risk analysis, film production, live television broadcast, manufacturing, and video surveillance.<ref name="buck">{{Cite news |title= Private billion buck HPC player? You're going to have to go public - and SOON |date= March 15, 2013 |work= The Register |author= Chris Mellor |url= https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/15/ddn_ipo/ |accessdate= October 12, 2016 }}</ref>
== History ==
In September 2018, DDN purchased the virtualization focused storage company [[Tintri]].<ref>[https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/ddn-completes-60-million-tintri-acquisition-and-enters-enterprise-virtualization-market/]</ref> In May, 2019, DDN acquired the [[software defined storage]] vendor Nexenta. In November 2019, DDN finalized the acquisition of the IntelliFlash division, formerly known as Tegile, from Western Digital Corporation [[Western Digital]].<ref>[https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/252471218/DDN-storage-expands-buys-Western-Digitals-IntelliFlash]</ref> These three acquisitions have been integrated to form an enterprise use case focused business unit under the Tintri Enterprise Business Unit.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Burt|first=Jeffrey|date=2019-10-09|title=DDN Uses Acquisitions to Grow In The Enterprise|url=https://www.nextplatform.com/2019/10/09/ddn-uses-acquisitions-to-grow-in-the-enterprise/|access-date=2021-03-04|website=The Next Platform|language=en-US}}</ref>
In November 2020, DDN announced they had won the business for University of Florida's new AI SuperComputer. Erik Deumens, director of information technology, UF said at the time, “Advancing our efforts to integrate AI across curriculum, improve research and empower students, as well as drive breakthroughs and discoveries are highly dependent on productive computing and efficient data systems, like those from DDN. We have a history of success with DDN storage systems powering our HPC computing and anticipate similar high productivity for our AI workloads."
In February of 2021, DDN reported revenues of $400M annually and claimed 11,000 customers globally.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mellor|first=Chris|date=2021-03-02|title=Your occasional storage digest with Arcserve, StorageCraft, DDN, and more|url=https://blocksandfiles.com/2021/03/02/enterprise-storage-news-digest-arcserve/|access-date=2021-03-04|website=Blocks and Files|language=en-GB}}</ref>
== Products ==
DDN is the leading provider of Intelligent Infrastructure products which bring simplicity, flexibility and efficiency for markets that are increasingly data-driven.<ref>{{Cite web|last=icomm|date=2021-03-12|title=Tintri drives intelligent infrastructure so you can get ready to ‘let go of the wheel’|url=https://www.itweb.co.za/content/JN1gPvOYKagMjL6m|access-date=2021-03-17|website=ITWeb|language=en}}</ref> As [[Data center management|IT operations]] have gotten more complex and the amount of available data continues to increase, DDN and its Tintri Enterprise Business unit have progressively focused on automation and analytics.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mellor|first=Chris|date=2020-12-10|title=DDN reveals VMstore and Intelliflash updates for 2021|url=https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/12/10/ddn-product-roadmap-2021/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=Blocks and Files|language=en-GB}}</ref> DDN has rounded out its portfolio through acquisition and internal development to address the full complement of storage and data management needs with AI enablement and monitoring, cloud native deployments, and optimizations for all environments and technologies including [[Artificial intelligence|AI]], [[analytics]], [[Graphics processing unit|GPUs]], [[Central processing unit|CPUs]], [[Networking hardware|networking]], [[IT infrastructure|data center infrastructure]], [[Hardware virtualization|virtualized environments]], cloud and [[Object composition|containers]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mellor|first=Chris|date=2020-12-10|title=DDN reveals VMstore and Intelliflash updates for 2021|url=https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/12/10/ddn-product-roadmap-2021/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=Blocks and Files|language=en-GB}}</ref>
As the leader in Intelligent Infrastructure DDN delivers products that are tailor made for the changing environments many data driven companies find themselves in relative to explosive data growth.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Total data volume worldwide 2010-2024|url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/|access-date=2021-03-23|website=Statista|language=en}}</ref> Managing this growth is accomplished with systems that deliver simple scalability of performance and capacity along with insight that drives decision making and planning all simplified through automation and continuous optimization. DDN's leadership in at-scale deployments, including storage for the largest supercomputer in the world<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-11-17|title=DDN Installs 30 SFA18K Series Storage Hardware Devices as Second-Tier Storage|url=https://aithority.com/it-and-devops/data-management/ddn-installs-30-sfa18k-series-storage-hardware-devices-as-second-tier-storage-for-the-supercomputer-fugaku/|access-date=2021-03-23|website=AiThority|language=en-US}}</ref> along with automation capabilities it acquired with Tintri deliver the increased simplicity needed to gain real-time acceleration of business insight.
The realities created by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 along with the emergence of AI as a key technology for deriving business value has pushed organizations to seek out intelligent infrastructure.<ref>{{Cite web|title=COVID-19 digital transformation & technology {{!}} McKinsey|url=https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever|access-date=2021-03-23|website=www.mckinsey.com}}</ref>
The company carries products that provide [[data management]], [[Network-attached storage|NAS]], [[Block (data storage)|block]], [[Clustered file system|parallel file]] and [[object storage]].
DDN’s At-Scale business unit primarily serves the AI and Analytics, Multi Cloud, Enterprise At Scale, Financial Services, Healthcare, Energy, Manufacturing, Government, Academia and High Performance Computing markets.
'''A<sup>3</sup>I Storage Solutions -''' Packaged storage solutions optimized to accelerate machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) workloads which need to be closely coupled to GPU compute systems. For example, to support NVIDIA solutions such as [[Nvidia|NVIDIA]] DGX SuperPOD and NVIDIA DGX A100.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-12-30|title=Integrated and automated management is a key component to handling data-centric growth|url=https://www.enterpriseai.news/2019/12/30/integrated-and-automated-management-is-a-key-component-to-handling-data-centric-growth/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=EnterpriseAI|language=en-US}}</ref> DDN is currently the only storage supplier with a reference architecture for the SuperPOD.<ref>{{Cite web|title=What's New in Deep Learning & Artificial Intelligence from NVIDIA|url=https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/resources/ddn-a3i-reference-architecture/|access-date=2021-03-23|website=NVIDIA|language=en-us}}</ref>
'''EXAScaler Filesystem -''' Exa5 is the latest release of the EXAScaler parallel filesystem which is optimized for high-throughput, low-latency and massive concurrency and scale. It has a shared parallel architecture that allows for linear scaling and concurrent access from AI and HPC compute systems.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Robinson|first=Daniel|date=2018-06-27|title=DDN Breathes New Life Into Lustre File System|url=https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/06/27/ddn-breathes-new-life-into-lustre-file-system/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=The Next Platform|language=en-US}}</ref> It features both appliance deployment models and cloud native deployment for hybrid and cloud AI and analytics workloads, like SAS GRID.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-01-26|title=EXAScaler Cloud by DDN: A shared file system to use with SAS Grid on MS Azure|url=https://communities.sas.com/t5/Administration-and-Deployment/EXAScaler-Cloud-by-DDN-A-shared-file-system-to-use-with-SAS-Grid/m-p/714234#M21291|access-date=2021-03-23|website=communities.sas.com|language=en}}</ref>
'''SFA -''' The SFA platforms are the hardware platforms that underlie the DDN file systems solutions. They are available as a block device or appliances running DDN’s filesystems in both EXAScaler and A<sup>3</sup>I configurations.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2011-09-20|title=DataDirect Unveiled Storage Fusion Architecture 10K-X|url=https://www.storagenewsletter.com/2011/09/20/datadirect-10k-x/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=StorageNewsletter|language=en-US}}</ref>
'''DataFlow''' - Software to automate synchronization, backup, archival and migration of large-scale datasets. DataFlow is used for transferring data between cloud and data centers to support AI and HPC workflows and data archiving.
'''DDN Insight -''' A scalable monitoring solution to monitor DDN storage systems and the networks, compute systems and workloads running on them.<ref>{{Cite web|title=DDN Announces New Solutions and Next Generation Monitoring Tools|url=https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/ddn-announces-new-solutions-next-generation-monitoring-tools/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=HPCwire|language=en-US}}</ref>
'''<big><u>Tintri</u></big>'''
DDN's [[Tintri]] Enterprise business unit supplies intelligent storage infrastructure solutions for enterprise use cases and workloads. Tintri products are aimed at virtualization ([[Tintri|Tintri VMstore]]), software defined unified storage ([[Nexenta Systems|Tintri NexentaStor]]), and all flash primary unified storage ([[IntelliFlash|Tintri IntelliFlash]]).
'''Tintri VMStore -''' Enterprise storage and virtualization appliances with NVMe, SAS and hybrid storage options. Automated management, QoS and analytics. Typically used for virtualized enterprise applications, VDI, databases and VMware Containers.<ref>{{Cite web|title=DDN Completes $60 Million Tintri Acquisition and Enters Enterprise Virtualization Market|url=https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/ddn-completes-60-million-tintri-acquisition-and-enters-enterprise-virtualization-market/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=HPCwire|language=en-US}}</ref>
'''Intelliflash -''' IOPs-intensive and low-latency storage with NVMe and hybrid options for mission-critical applications such as image recognition, transaction processing and media streaming. Also suitable for mixed workloads including, with support for both file- and block filesystem protocols. Support for automation, analytic insights and backup to cloud storage.
'''NexentaStor''' - Software-Defined Storage (SDS) – software-only storage solutions, suitable for deploying on open hardware servers to support telecoms and cloud services, supporting object-, file-, and block filesystem protocols.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Feldman|first=Michael|date=2019-05-06|title=DDN Adds Nexenta to Expanding Storage Empire|url=https://www.nextplatform.com/2019/05/06/ddn-expands-storage-empire/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=The Next Platform|language=en-US}}</ref>
== Typical Deployments ==
DDN’s At Scale storage solutions are typically deployed for applications which need low latency, high capacity and sustained throughput. In 2019, IDC estimated the worldwide storage market at approximately $28.7B,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Worldwide and U.S. External Enterprise Storage Systems Forecast Update, 2020–2024|url=https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US46069720|access-date=2021-03-23|website=IDC: The premier global market intelligence company}}</ref> while Intersect360 estimated the market for high-performance storage at approximately $5.8B.<ref>{{Cite web|last=July 24|last2=2020|title=Worldwide HPC 2019 Total Market Model: Storage Revenue Shares|url=https://www.intersect360.com/reports/worldwide-hpc-2019-total-market-model-storage-revenue-shares|access-date=2021-03-23|website=www.intersect360.com|language=en}}</ref> Typical deployments include:
{| class="wikitable"
|+
|'''AI and Deep Learning'''
|AI compute systems, typically consisting of arrays of GPUs, require high-bandwidth parallel access to very large volumes of unstructured data, to accelerate ingest, classification, machine learning and inference. DDN and NVIDIA have published reference architectures for AI and Deep Learning at scale.<ref>{{Cite web|title=What's New in Deep Learning & Artificial Intelligence from NVIDIA|url=https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/data-center/resources/ddn-a3i-reference-architecture/|access-date=2021-03-23|website=NVIDIA|language=en-gb}}</ref>
|-
|'''Enterprise and Cloud at Scale'''
|Consolidation and orchestration of enterprise storage at scale, often looking to consolidate critical systems such as enterprise analytics, filesystems, virtual desktops, archiving and data management into a unified data platform, both in datacenters and the cloud.
|-
|'''Financial Services'''
|Analysis and decision making for high-frequency trading, typically requiring very low latency access to real-time trading records. 40% of leading global investment banks use DDN storage for high-speed analytics.
|-
|'''Life Sciences and Pharmaceuticals'''
|Analysis of clinical data such as imaging for automated diagnosis and predicting patient outcomes, and for bioinformatics such as molecular modeling, protein folding and genomic analysis. [[Wellcome Sanger Institute|The Sanger Institute]] has one of the largest sequencing centers in the world, and runs genome analysis for COG-UK on DDN’s EXAScaler high performance storage systems.<ref>{{Cite web|title=DDN Wins Multiple 2020 HPCwire Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards|url=https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/ddn-wins-multiple-2020-hpcwire-readers-and-editors-choice-awards/|access-date=2021-03-23|website=HPCwire|language=en-US}}</ref>
|-
|'''Autonomous Systems'''
|Data acquisition, Deep Learning, Machine Learning and inference to support self-governing systems, such as autonomous cars, boats, aircraft and manufacturing processes.
|-
|'''Imaging and Natural Language Processing'''
|Real-time analysis and classification of visual and audio data for video surveillance, industrial, environmental and aerospace applications.
|-
|'''Federal, Research & Academia'''
|National supercomputing resources for strategic research and development, including climate sciences, energy research, cosmology, and fundamental sciences. For example, the [[Fugaku (supercomputer)|Fugaku]] supercomputer is installed at the [[RIKEN]] Center for Computational Science in [[Kobe]], [[Japan]].
|-
|'''HPC'''
|High-performance computing systems, used for analytics, simulation and modelling, such as computational fluid dynamics or research sciences. Examples include energy, aerospace and engineering. In September 2020, was rated #1 overall in the Intersect360 User Survey for HPC Storage.<ref>{{Cite web|last=September 24|last2=2020|title=HPC User Ratings Survey: Awareness, Satisfaction, Loyalty Across Processors, Servers, Storage, Cloud|url=https://www.intersect360.com/reports/hpc-user-ratings-survey-awareness-satisfaction-loyalty-across-processors-servers-storage-cloud|access-date=2021-03-23|website=www.intersect360.com|language=en}}</ref>
|}
==Notable awards and achievements==
{{Advert|date=October 2018}}
* 2008: [[Frost & Sullivan]] World Disk Storage for Digital Media Market Product Differentiation Innovation Award.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20101121125012/http://ddn.com/pdfs/FROST-Innovation2008.pdf “2008 World Disk Storage for Digital Media Market Product Differentiation Innovation Award,”] Frost & Sullivan, 2008]</ref>
* 2009: Frost & Sullivan World Disk Storage for Best Practice For Video Surveillance Capture & Archive.<ref>[http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/datadirect-networks-scalable-storage-technology-recognized-leading-storage-analyst-as-1201941.htm “DataDirect Networks Scalable Storage Technology Recognized by Leading Storage Analyst as a Best Practice for Video Surveillance Capture & Archive,”] Market Wired, 2009]</ref>
* 2010: [[Deloitte]]'s Technology Fast 500™.<ref>[http://technews.tmcnet.com/wireless-backhaul/news/2010/10/28/5098912.htm “Surge in Demand for Dynamic Content Infrastructure Propels DataDirect Networks Into Deloitte's Technology Fast 500(TM),”] TMCnet, 2010]</ref>
* 2011:Named fastest growing $100M+ computer company by ''[[Inc. Magazine]]'', its second year of inclusion on the Inc. 500|5000 list.<ref>[http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/2011/industry/computer-hardware “Top Computer Hardware Companies on the 2011 Inc. 5000,”] Inc. Magazine, 2011]</ref>
* 2012: Named America's fastest growing $200M+ privately held computer company by ''Inc. Magazine''.<ref>[http://primeurmagazine.com/weekly/AE-PR-10-12-25.html “DataDirect Networks is named America's fastest growing $200M+ privately held computer company by Inc. Magazine,”] Primeur Magazine, Sept 6, 2012]</ref>
* 2013: Named fastest growing technology company over $100 million by the [[Los Angeles Business Journal]] for the 3rd year in a row.<ref>[http://www.backupreview.info/2013/01/18/big-data-leader-datadirect-networks-ddn-recognized-as-fastest-growing-technology-company-over-100-million-on-los-angeles-business-journal%E2%80%99s-list-for-third-year-in-a-row/ “Big Data Leader DataDirect Networks (DDN) Recognized as Fastest Growing Technology Company Over $100 Million on Los Angeles Business Journal’s List for Third Year in a Row,”] Backup Review, Jan, 2013]</ref>
* 2014: [[National Association of Broadcasters]]' Best of Show Award for its WOS object storage product.<ref>[http://www.videoedge.net/news/news-articles/and-winners-newbay-media-s-2014-best-show-awards-presented-video-edge-magazine-are/358711 Grotticelli, M.: “And the Winners of NewBay Media’s 2014 Best of Show Awards Presented by 'Video Edge' Magazine Are ...”], Video Edge, May 9, 2014]</ref>
* 2015: Best in Video Surveillance Data Storage Award for its GS7K appliance at the SIA New Product Showcase.<ref>https://www.securityindustry.org/Pages/PressReleases/2015/MorphoWAVE-from-Safran-Morpho-Named-Best-New-Product-at-SIA%E2%80%99s-2015-New-Product-Showcase.aspx</ref>
*2019: IDC noted that DDN was the fastest growing all flash array vendor.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Moore|first=Ben|title=IDC names DDN fastest-growing all-flash array vendor|url=https://datacenternews.us/story/idc-names-ddn-fastest-growing-all-flash-array-vendor|access-date=2021-03-23|website=datacenternews.us|language=en}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[https://www.ddn.com/ Official website]
[[Category:Companies based in Santa Clara, California]]
| 