Top Ten Private Storage Networking Companies update from December 2001

Ding! Ding! Round three! This is it. The update to the Byte and Switch Top 10 List. And theres no tweaking it this time; we’ve made changes muchos grande.

As always, we appreciated and enjoyed your feedback on the last list. Those of you good enough to keep us on our toes by using the message boards, keep it up. The rest of you... Jump on and voice your opinions (after reading our Top 6 Top 10 Rules, natch). Get involved. It’s fun!

So, getting down to it. In the newly revised ranking there are:

For anyone wondering why we don’t have one of the ten-or-so storage processor startups on this list, it’s because this sector is massively over-funded and none of these companies has pulled ahead of the pack – yet [ed.note: ever?]. If you think there’s an obvious winner here let us know why.

Click on any entry below to get the updated skinny on these storage networking go-getters.Table 1: Top Ten Private Storage Networking Companies

This well funded startup is now in beta trials with several large corporations but hangs on to the top spot by the skin of its teeth. Insiders tell us major announcements are on the way early 2002. Pirus Networks has only one way to go… and that’s down, unless we see these orders!

For the previous Top 10 articles about this company, see:

On Fire and PirusManiacs

Nishan Systems Inc. moves two spots – up to number two, having recently swapped out its entire sales team for a bunch of experienced hands from Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO). It also recently secured a $10 million line of credit and is now shipping its IP storage router (see Nishan Secures $10M Debt Financing and Nishan Swaps Out Sales Team).

This company is doing a lot right, but, like Pirus, to keep its position in the top 5 it must start selling some boxes.For the previous Top 10 article about this company, see:

Loaded Ride

Our first new entry storms into the number three spot.

DataCore Software Corp. sells virtualization software that allows customers to manage and re-map different physical storage devices into a common pool of capacity, easing the management burden. But there’s nothing virtual about this company’s revenues (rumored to be running at about $30 million per year). While virtualization was the buzzword in 2001, DataCore is one of the few companies out there actually making money from it.

As well as securing $30 million in additional funding recently, DataCore is booking revenue and signing up reseller and OEM agreements faster than McDonalds serves up le Big Mac. Move over Ron!

Opponents say there could be some issues with DataCore’s software running on Windows-only platforms when it comes to selling to large enterprises, as this operating system is not known for its stability. But so far this hasnot been an issue for DataCore (see DataCore Lands $30M, IBM Signs Sneaky DataCore Deal, and Hitachi to Resell DataCore?).DataCore also is the only pure-play software virtualization company left after Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP) acquired StorageApps, and it could feasibly be next in line to be scarfed-up (see, HP Acquires StorageApps and HDS Rebuts SAN Switch Rumors).

Shooting up three spots to number four, Scale Eight Inc. is perhaps the most interesting and controversial move on this list. On the face of it, this company should be dead and buried like most of the other SSPs in this sector. After all, Scale Eight still co-locates storage arrays in Exodus data centers and rents out capacity on demand; and with Exodus Communications Inc. (OTC: EXDSQ) in such bad shape, the future for any company co-locating in its data centers is up in the air (see Exodus: What's Next?). Still, Scale Eight assures us it is checking out other co-location deals in case Exodus doesn’t make it.

And, more importantly, what sets Scale Eight apart from other SSPs is that it is also bundling some rather natty file management software with its services, which are targeted at an extremely lucrative niche of multimedia broadcasters (see SwapDrive Chooses Scale Eight and Scale Eight Wins With ImageState).

A typical example is Octavo, a “document preservation” company, which uses Scale Eight’s global storage service to store digitized documents and share them with libraries, museums, and universities around the world.

Scale Eight is already signing up customers hand over fist. If it can find success in today’s economic doldrums, imagine what it could do when the business environment picks up?For the previous Top 10 articles about this company, see: Hits High Note and To Infinity & Beyond!

Holding fast at number five, SANcastle Technologies' sales of its FC/IP translation switch are believed to be creeping up, albeit slowly. EDS is already a customer, and it recently signed a reseller deal with Ethernet switch player Anritsu Corp.

Compaq Computer Corp.

(NYSE: CPQ) has also certified SANcastle as an “approved interface vendor” for its Data Replication Management FC-IP Solution. (We don’t actually know what this means, but it sure sounds impressive!)

The official announcement of this approval is not due until January, but you can get the details here, now: ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/sanworks/techdoc/drm/EK-DRMIP-AA-A01.pdf

For the previous Top 10 article about this company, see:Lower The Drawbridge! InterSAN Inc.The second new entry on our list pushes out 3PARdata Inc., taking the number six spot. InterSAN is working on software to manage storage systems in networked environments. MerrillLynch & Co. Inc., IDC, and the The Yankee Group all think that this will be one of the hottest areas in storage networking next year. For once, we agree.

InterSAN offers automated storage provisioning software that tackles a major part of the storage management issue. It lets users automate storage provisioning, measure service-level agreements, and create and monitor policies across heterogeneous storage networking components (see InterSAN Attracts Major InterEST).

Basically, this is spicy hot stuff! EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) is attempting to do similar things via its AutoIS software initiative (basically, an invitation to other storage vendors to share upper-level management APIs in order to manage storage across the different systems). The problem EMC faces is getting its competition, which it has so vehemently disregarded in the past, to now go ahead and work with it (see EMC Goes Soft).

While EMC fights its political battles, InterSAN has a great opportunity to take a leadership stance in this market.

Alacritech Inc. is the last new entry on this list, making its debut at number seven. This company is keeping everybody on their TOEs with a gigabit Ethernet SAN NIC accelerator card, also known as a... erm, TOE (or TCP/IP offload engine, to be really flash).As well as consolidating NAS file data and SAN block data over an IP network, it also comes with an IP stack, offloading IP processing tasks from the server and improving overall network performance (see Alacritech Demos Accelerator). This is a big deal, because right now IP overhead is the biggest roadblock to widespread deployment of IP in storage nets (see Sun's Down on Storage Over IP).

Then there’s the little matter of who happens to be running this company: It’s only Larry Boucher -- the inventor of SCSI, the founder of AdaptecInc. (Nasdaq: ADPT, and now a billion dollar company), and, prior to that, a major cheese in the storage division of IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) for 12 years.

Alacritech faces competition, though. Adaptec bought Platys, which is working on the same sort of product; and several other startups -- including Trebia Networks Inc. and Silverback Systems Inc. -- are hot on its heels. But right now, Alacritech looks to have the lead and is already shipping product.

BlueArc Corp.

is still undeniably hot, but that hasn’t stopped it dropping six places in this listing.

Partly this is because the industry expectations for BlueArc are so high. It made a huge splash when it launched, received buckets of funding, and has a tip-top management team. But sales, since it started shipping in July, have been slow.BlueArc has shipped five of its Si7500 storage servers to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to be used in conjunction with LLNL's accelerated strategic computing initiative (ASCI). BlueArc has confirmed that LLNL did pay for these boxes.

However, other sales have gone to strategic partners, such as Extreme Networks Inc.(Nasdaq: EXTR) and Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR) that are demonstrating the equipment in their respective labs as a favor to BlueArc.

A company spokesperson told Byte and Switch that BlueArc is under increasing pressure from Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP), which is shipping boxes for free, or almost free, to counter the competition.

What’s needed for BlueArc to move back up the list? A few big customer wins.

For the previous Top 10 article about this company, see:

Big BlueArcOn September 19, we wrote up 3PARdata Inc.’s $100 million round of funding, giving it the title 3PARdata is Ready. Did we speak too soon?

3ParData has more money than most of the startups on the Top 10 put together, and an impressive management team to boot. But there’s no sign of a product yet, not even a whisper of what color it might be!

It’s time for 3PAR to put up or fall off.

For the previous Top 10 articles about this company, see:EMC Hammer and

In the Money

Hmmm. Where to start? What a year for Cereva Networks Inc. Here’s a snapshot of the stories we’ve run. They should give you a good indication of why it has dropped down two spots to number ten.Cereva Details Storage Switch

Cereva: Stalled, Not Stopped
Cereva Closes In On Round Three
Cereva Skids to a Halt
Cereva's Back on Track
Cereva Exec Churn Continues
Cereva Cuts Twenty More

Time will tell whether the new management team at Cereva is better than the old. Cereva is head-to-head with 3PARdata and, like 3PAR, details of its product are long overdue. It’s time for the company to talk about its technology, or we’ll be shipping it out (and off) our top 10 list.

For the previous Top 10 articles about this company, see:

Viva Cereva! and

Running Low

IN THE BIT BUCKET

Off the list and into the bit bucket – plip! — go TrueSAN Networks Inc., Troika Networks, and Zambeel Inc.Yotta Yotta Inc. abides, largely because of the Yotta Yotta Song.

TrueSAN was first to market with a patched-together SAN-in-a-can (a large storage array and switch in one box a la 3PAR and Cereva) but has still not announced any customers. Troika launched its proprietary server clustering technology, but since then there’s been no word from this company, which isn’t a good sign.

And Zambeel got a ton of money from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers