DataDirect Networks: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:12, 16 November 2021

Revision as of 05:18, 17 December 2021

Line 1:

{{Short description|Computer data storage company}}

{{Cleanup-PR|1=article|date=April 2021}}

{{Infobox company

Line 15 ⟶ 16:

}}

'''DataDirect Networks''' ('''DDN''') is a privately-held data storage company,<ref>{{Cite news|author=Dave Raffo|date=September 20, 2011|title=DataDirect Networks discusses new system, IBM relationship|work=Storage Soup|url=http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/datadirect-networks-discusses-new-system-ibm-relationship/|accessdate=October 12, 2016}}</ref> and is headquartered in [[Chatsworth, California]], USA.{{Short description|Computer data storage company}}

== Summary ==

Line 29:

DataDirect Networks, Inc, was formed in 1998 from the merger of two earlier companies, MegaDrive and ImpactData. Alex Bouzari is the company's CEO, chairman and co-founder.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2011-01-17|title=Exclusive Interview of Alex Bouzari, CEO of DataDirect Networks|url=https://www.storagenewsletter.com/2011/01/17/interview-alex-bouzari-datadirect-networks/|access-date=2021-03-04|website=StorageNewsletter|language=en-US}}</ref> Paul Bloch is president and co-founder.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Paul Bloch - President & Co-founder at DDN Storage|url=https://theorg.com/org/ddn-storage/org-chart/paul-bloch|access-date=2021-03-04|website=THE ORG|language=en}}</ref>

DDN concentrated on building high speed disk storage systems for customers like NASA, eventually delivering storage to five of their systems - [[Columbia_Columbia (supercomputer)|Columbia]], Schirra, RTJones, Hyperwall-2 and [[Pleiades_Pleiades (supercomputer)|Pleiades]] by 2008.<ref>{{Cite web|title=NASA Selects DataDirect Networks' Proven S2A9900 Storage Solution for Pleiades Supercomputer|url=http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=26983|access-date=2021-03-04|website=www.spaceref.com}}</ref> With the explosion of “[[Big data|Big Data]],” Alex Bouzari and Paul Bloch realised that a wider "transformative" event was happening in IT, and that HPC-class storage would be needed for high-end analytics and data processing, with lightning-fast IO, and the ability to scale to much higher capacities.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Mellor|first=Chris|title=Alex Bouzari on his big data storage firm: First, we got rid of the VCs|url=https://www.theregister.com/2014/06/30/a_ddn_chat/|access-date=2021-03-16|website=www.theregister.com|language=en}}</ref> Rather than follow a larger market served by mainstream system and storage vendors, Bouzari and Bloch decided to focus exclusively on fast access and high-capacity storage, particularly for unstructured data.<ref>{{Cite web|title=DataDirect Networks: CEO Interview {{!}} Network Computing|url=https://www.networkcomputing.com/data-centers/datadirect-networks-ceo-interview/page/0/3?piddl_msgorder=|access-date=2021-03-16|website=www.networkcomputing.com|language=en}}</ref>

DDN completed a $9.9 million round of [[venture capital]] financing in October 2001 with ClearLight Partners LLC and Digital Coast Ventures.<ref>{{Cite news |url= http://www.thefreelibrary.com/DATADIRECT+NETWORKS+CLOSES+SERIES+A+FUNDING+ROUND+OF+US+Dollars+9.9...-a078779943 |title= DataDirect Networks Closes Series A Funding Round Of US Dollars 9.9 Million |date= October 1, 2001 |work= Press release |publisher= DataDirect Networks |accessdate= October 12, 2016 }}</ref> In 2002, the company ended its relationship with its venture capital financiers.<ref>{{Cite web |title= How To Defend Your Dream Against All Odds: Alex Bouzari, CEO of DataDirect Networks |work= One Million by One Million Blog |date= October 16, 2011 |url =http://www.sramanamitra.com/2011/10/16/how-to-defend-your-dream-against-all-odds-alex-bouzari-ceo-of-datadirect-networks-part-4/ |accessdate= October 12, 2016 }}</ref>

Line 36:

In 2008, DDN reported that it had exceeded $100 million in annual revenue and claimed to provide storage systems for 48 of the top 100 supercomputers – with customers including [[Argonne National Laboratory]] and the [[NASA Ames Research Center]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ddn.com/pdfs/taneja_0908.pdf |title=Company Profile, DataDirect Networoks |publisher=[[Taneja Group]] |date=September 2008 |url-status = dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101121132741/http://ddn.com/pdfs/taneja_0908.pdf |archivedate=November 21, 2010 }}</ref> In 2011, DDN reported that it had exceeded the $200M annual revenue mark,<ref>[https://451research.com/report-short?entityId=68562 Baltazar, H.: “DataDirect accelerates sales past $200m plateau, eyes analytics,”] 451 Research, July 28, 2011]</ref> and was reported to be the world's largest privately held storage company, based on 2009 revenues.<ref>[http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/datadirect-networks-called-no-1-among-private-storage-vendors/ Raffo, D.: “DataDirect Networks called No. 1 among private storage vendors,”] Storage Soup , Jan 12, 2011]</ref>

In 2013, the company built the storage system for [[Titan (supercomputer)|Titan supercomputer]].<ref>{{Cite web |title= Titan supercomputer will have world's fastest storage at 1.4TB/s |date =April 16, 2013 |work= Extreme Tech |author= James Plafke |url= http://www.extremetech.com/computing/153517-titan-supercomputer-will-have-worlds-fastest-storage-at-1-4tbs |accessdate= October 12, 2016 }}</ref>

DDN announced in 2016 that it powered 70 percent of the top 500 supercomputers, up from 67 percent in 2015.<ref>https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/07/ddn_ups_top_500_supercomputer_showing {{Bare URL inline|date=December 2021}}</ref> In 2017, DDN earned the [[Unicorn (finance)|unicorn]] status.<ref>http://www.storagenewsletter.com/2017/06/06/storage-unicorn-update-june-2017/</ref>

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]].<ref>[https://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/252471218/DDN-storage-expands-buys-Western-Digitals-IntelliFlash]</ref> These three acquisitions became 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 February of 2021, DDN reported revenues of $400 million and claimed 11,000 customers.<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>

DDN operates in 20 countries with customers in over 50 countries.<ref>{{Cite news|title=About Us - DDN.com|language=en-US|work=DDN.com|url=https://www.ddn.com/company/about-us/|access-date=2021-03-17}}</ref> Following acquisitions in 2018 and 2019, the company has around 1,000 employees and has more than 150 patents. Between 2018 and 2020, DDN increased its R&D budget by 65%, with approximately two-thirds of staff in R&D and customer-facing technical roles.<ref>{{Citation|title=Alex Bouzari: Delivering Intelligent Technology and Infrastructure for a Changing World|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD6M63TOErM|language=en|access-date=2021-03-17}}</ref>

Line 46:

== Products ==

The company carries products that provide [[data management]], [[network-attached storage]], [[Block (data storage)|block data storage]], [[clustered file system]]s and [[object storage]].

Customers typically need low latency, high capacity and sustained throughput.

==References==