Diligent Cracks Open

Backup software startup Diligent Technologies is moving from the mainframe out into the open with the launch of a new virtualized tape backup product for open systems (see Diligent Opens Up Tape Backup).

The Framingham, Mass., company, which has been shipping its mainframe backup tool since November 2002, said today that its new Virtual Tape Facility Open Systems (VTF) software allows companies to back up existing open systems applications to disk -- instead of tape -- without changing the applications or the processes. Diligent was formed last year as a spinoff from EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) (see EMC Offshoot Lifts the Hood).

"One thing that sets the product apart is that it doesn't change the existing environment," says Mike Parise, Diligent's VP of sales. By emulating tape, he says, the company's software can "fool the server into thinking it has sent data to a tape library."

By moving backup from tape to disk, Diligent says companies can eliminate the mechanical errors inherent to tape libraries, while at the same time shortening the backup and recovery times significantly. This in turn, the company claims, helps lower administrative costs.

And since the software can make multiple servers and arrays spread throughout the network look like a single, large tape library, it greatly simplifies backup management and allows customers to simply scale to meet their growing capacity needs, he says."This can be very inexpensive storage," Parise says "It offers tremendous scaleability, because you can start very small and scale very high."

Diligent's VTF software can support up to 16 virtual tape libraries per server and up to 64 virtual tape drives. The software, which runs on Linux or Solaris servers, appears to Fibre Channel-attached disk arrays as if it were traditional tape drives and tape libraries. Customers starting out with a single-port system can add multiple hosts, servers, and disk arrays to increase their throughput and redundancy as need arises, Diligent says.

Of course, Diligent isn't the only company offering disk-based backup that looks and feels like tape. But while many hardware vendors, such as Quantum Corp. (NYSE: DSS) and Neartek Inc., may wrap software into their backup products, there are still few pure software plays in this space. In addition to Diligent, Alacritus Software Inc. also offers a software-only product (see Disk Backup 101 and Quantum Digs Into Disk Backup).

"I think there's a big opportunity for [pure] software players," says Enterprise Storage Group Inc. analyst Steve Kenniston, pointing out that as more companies consolidate their storage resources, they may turn up boxes that can simply be recycled with Diligent's software.

And while Diligent faces the typical startup problem of trying to gain traction in a market dominated by giants like EMC, Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), and Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) (NYSE: STK), the company's close relationship with EMC gives it an edge, according to Kenniston. "The one area where they really stand out is their relationship with EMC," he says.The company was founded last June when it acquired EMC's Tel Aviv R&D center, which developed storage backup technologies. EMC, which owns 24 percent of the company, has pumped $5 million in cash and $4.6 million worth of equipment and products into the new company. In addition, the fledgling company was given a $10 million set of wings through majority stakeholder Moshe Yanai's investment firm, Credo Group.

Through its EMC channel, Diligent has already managed to gain a number of impressive customers for its existing mainframe software, including Ford Motor Co., Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., and Stanford University. The company says it already has about 45 installations and has issued more than 70 licenses for that product. "This isn't your typical startup," insists Parise. He says the company is aiming to reach profitability by the end of 2004.

While the EMC agreement has proved valuable to Diligent, the company is quick to point out that it is free to partner with other resellers as well. The company said today that three value-added resellers (VARs) will resell, service, and support its VTF software: ABBA Technologies, Eastern Computer Exchange Inc., and Stack Computer.

Diligent doesn't yet have paying customers for its new open systems software, but it claims to have several beta trials ongoing at the moment.

Interestingly, Diligent has decided to price its new software not per terabyte, but based on throughput. Depending on how many front-end ports a customers needs, the annual licensing fee for the software ranges from $35,000 to $160,000.Eugénie Larson, Reporter, Light Reading