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Subject: FW: nice 451group writeup on ONStor
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 07:14:16 -0800
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Thread-Topic: nice 451group writeup on ONStor
Thread-Index: AcfJnDX2KsWPBnOHT8eWBmts/pAAvwFf9AJZAqE0itA=
From: "Jay Michlin" <jay.michlin@onstor.com>
To: "dl-Software" <dl-software@onstor.com>

FYI, the 415 Group is an industry analyst (http://www.the451group.com/)

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Miller=20
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 5:34 PM
To: Tom Gallivan; Sudheesh Nair; Joe Vitorino; Paul Negus; Caeli
Collins; Brian Stark; Paul Hammer; Jay Michlin
Subject: Fw: nice 451group writeup on ONStor

Fyi
Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeb Miller <JMiller@comventures.com>
To: Bob Miller; Frank Laurencio; Narayan Venkat
CC: kfong@mayfield.com <kfong@mayfield.com>; MSchuh@FoundationCap.com
<MSchuh@FoundationCap.com>; colin@worldview.com <colin@worldview.com>;
nchaddha@mayfield.com <nchaddha@mayfield.com>; Ashmeet Sidana
<ASidana@FoundationCap.com>
Sent: Wed Jul 11 17:30:50 2007
Subject: nice 451group writeup on ONStor

ONStor tops 300 customers as it touts 'green' benefits Market
Development by Simon Robinson

ONStor has racked up more than 300 customers; buoyed, it says, by high
interest in the benefits of storage consolidation. The company says it
should finish 2007 with 300% growth over 2006. It added about 40 new
customers in the second quarter.=20

To accelerate its momentum, the network-attached storage (NAS)
specialist is in the process of closing a $25m funding round, which
should bring its total up to about $100m. It claims to be a 'couple of
quarters' from profitability.=20

ONStor is joining the 'green' storage debate, claiming that one of its
storage nodes can replace 30 Windows NAS servers. Power and rack space
are key considerations for its Web 2.0 and service provider customers,
it notes.=20

NAS and file virtualization can be interpreted and implemented in many
different ways, and to different ends, but ONStor seems to have focused
on one of the more popular areas. Many midsized to large organizations
are seeing storage growth spiral out of control, and while capacity is
cheap, managing it is not. ONStor views itself as the 'VMware of NAS,'
in that it allows users to improve storage management and utilization
through consolidation. It just so happens that these also play well into
'green' issues, though such schemes are more about saving costs than
they are about saving the planet. ONStor is making solid progress, and
believes another funding round should get it near to IPO. In the current
climate, that doesn't sound too ambitious.=20

ONStor has made solid progress since we last caught up with it. Its
customer base is up some 130 on the 170 it reported last August, with
continued strength among universities and service providers, and a
resurgence in 'Web 2.0' companies, where customers include Facebook,
eHarmony and Shopzilla. Average selling price is about $65,000 for its
Bobcat NAS gateways, and about $115,000 for its Pantera disk systems,
which were released in Q4 of 2006 and had accumulated roughly 45
customers by the end of Q1. ONStor thinks the split between Bobcat and
Pantera will reach 50/50 within a year. Approximately 75% of current
customers run both CIFS and NFS protocols on its systems. About 30% of
ONStor's sales are from overseas, with 20% from Europe and 10% from
Japan. Direct sales account for 30% of the US total, with the remainder
fulfilled through resellers. Headcount is steady on a year ago, standing
at 118, though ONStor has brought in new VPs for both sales and
marketing in recent months.=20

On the product front, ONStor has just released a global namespace
capability to manage multiple Windows filers through one pane of glass.
Unix support will be added by the end of 2008. New gateways and filers
are on the roadmap for early 2008, as is 10-Gigabit Ethernet support.
ONStor this week unveiled its 'green' strategy, which it thinks is
particularly relevant to its power- and space-confined customers.=20

ONStor positions itself as a more-scalable, flexible and efficient
version of NAS giant Network Appliance, though at the same time it
insists it's not a NetApp 'clone.' It doesn't overtly target existing
NetApp shops, but rather takes aim at organizations that have either a
nascent NAS requirement (where it targets Pantera), or have lots of
smaller non-NetApp filers, especially low-end Windows NAS servers. The
chief benefit of its own approach is that it can deliver solid NAS
performance across both NFS and CIFS, while providing customers with the
flexibility to choose and use a wide range of back-end storage. While
NetApp can do the former very well, and has the capability to do the
latter (with its V-Series gateway), its business model is still geared
heavily to pushing its own hardware. Even then, customers are still tied
into its proprietary WAFL file system.=20

On the flip side, ONStor still lacks much of the software functionality
NetApp offers, especially in data management and protection, though it
does offer replication and is working on adding snapshot cloning
features. It's also looking at adding de-duplication - to provide
efficient IP mirroring - though will likely partner rather than develop
this itself. ONStor's other major rival is EMC. ONStor claims not to run
into BlueArc (too high end), Exanet or Hewlett-Packard/PolyServe.=20

=20

