Zadara Storage
What they do: Provide enterprise Storage-as-a-Service.
Problem they solve: As cloud computing overtakes the enterprise, it’s also changing how internal resources are deployed. IT managers want to make their data centers more like the cloud – highly elastic, cost efficient, and readily scaled up and down.
Futher, they’d prefer to be able to administer changes from a centralized interface, while also paying for storage as an Opex service, rather than a Capex investment.
And IT managers want this capability even if they have an on-premises data center.
But traditional data storage is holding them back, forcing organizations to make compromises between important features and business agility. To get the guaranteed performance they need, IT managers have been forced to put up with traditional storage that is cumbersome and time-consuming to administer, requires a hefty CapEx purchase up front (or a costly, long-term lease), and forces IT managers to accurately estimate and buy enough storage 3- to 5-years out. Worse, at the end of that 3- to 5-year lifecycle, their storage resource have become so outdated that they need forklift replacements.
How they solve it: The Zadara Storage Cloud provides enterprise-grade Storage-as-a-Service for any data type (block, file, object) in any location (cloud, on-premises, or hybrid) with any protocol (FC-SCSI, iSCSI, iSER, NFS, CIFS, S3, Swift).
Since this is a service, there are no leases, upfront costs or lengthy commitments. Users get isolated resources, but with the “economic and elastic benefits of multi-tenancy, but the security and guaranteed performance of a single-tenant experience.”
#Big50-2017 startup Zadara Storage helps out businesses impacted by Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria. https://wp.me/p330ZZ-l1 Click To TweetBuilt on standard x86 servers, Zadara layers on software that creates a virtualizing data storage resource abstraction layer. This delivers predictable performance, full data privacy and security, along with full elasticity.
Headquarters: Irvine, CA
CEO: Nelson Nahum. Nelson previously co-founded StoreAge Networks and served as its CTO and R&D Manager.
Year Founded: 2011
Funding: $27.5 million in total, raised from Toshiba America Electric, Hamilton Capital, and Genesis Capital.
Competitors include: EMC Dell, HPE, IBM/Cleversafe, Nimble, NetApp, and many others.
Customers include: NewsUK (parent to WSJ), Economist, Kodak Alaris, Gilt (now Saks Fifth Avenue), Lawter, Impress, and CBM Archives, among others.
Why they’re in the Big 50-2017: First off, Zadara has something many startups do not: an impressive and long list of named customers, including NewsUK and Saks Fifth Avenue. Zadara also aced our content challenge, and they have an impressive leadership team.
In 2017, the company expanded its global footprint, added new customers, such as Kodak Alaris, and they also offered businesses impacted by Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria free Storage-as-a-Service for six months, as the businesses rebuild their computing infrastructure.
