Sunnyvale, California-based NetApp is best known as a vendor of network-attached storage devices, though these days, technological developments such as the iSCSI protocol and NAS headers (gateways) mean it can now legitimately claim to have moved on, with storage devices with file- and block-level access to data, and it is now offering both NAS and storage area networks.
NetApp has also been blazing a trail in nearline storage with its NearStore range of SATA-based devices, for which it offers WORM-like functionality with its LockVault software, a feature that enables it to talk compliance with SEC rules. That was also where the relationship with Redwood City, California-based Decru first began a couple of years ago, according to Tim Pitcher, VP of strategy and business development for NetApp in EMEA.
Decru markets its DataFort technology on a pre-integrated server. Describing the synergies with NetApp, Pitcher said: we’re both into appliances. It is therefore only natural that one might be deployed in a network in front of a NearStore box to perform wire-speed encryption on the data being written to it. However, as an independent software vendor, Decru clearly had a vested interest in working with everyone’s hardware with tape as well as disk, and this will continue.
NetApp will not be restricting Decru’s software to work only with NetApp hardware. This furthers a practice NetApp established in April when it acquired tape virtualization vendor Alacritus Software for $11m. Again, it can work with NetApp hardware, but that it not essential.
Recent high-profile data security breaches at places like Bank of America and Ameritrade where backup tapes actually went missing have thrown a spotlight on companies like Decru. The market for their kind of technology is not huge (some analysts suggests no more than $50m in 2004), but BoA and Ameritrade have led to more bullish forecasts for 2005 revenue.
The acquisition by NetApp is interesting in that the other players in this space (companies such as Vormetric, Kasten Chase, and NeoScale Systems) are all relatively small, and apart from Kasten Chase, privately held. The question now is whether NetApp’s competitors in enterprise storage hardware will feel compelled to acquire one of Decru’s rivals, or will remain happy for their customers to go to a division of NetApp to encrypt writes to disk or tape. In particular, EMC, which prides itself on leading the storage software market, might be expected to dip into its notoriously deep pockets rather than see business going to its sworn enemy in NAS.
