RevStor's approach isn't unique. Seanodes, which just garnered $6.5 million in fresh funding, also uses agents to virtualize storage on LAN-linked servers. The vendor, headquartered in France with new offices in the U.S., also claims about 10 paying customers.
Both vendors tout questionable differentiators. According to Frank Gana, director of business development at Seanodes, prices starting at $200 per server are cheaper than those for RevStor -- though what that $200 buys isn't clear. For its part, RevStor claims tighter security than Seanodes, though the specifics aren't clearcut, either.
Neither RevStor nor Seanodes is deploying unique technology. The concept of using standard, nonproprietary hardware for storage has been popularized by iSCSI SAN vendor LeftHand Networks. Another iSCSI startup, StorMagic, takes a similar approach. In addition, a passel of other startups claim a distributed storage or grid approach, including Cleversafe and Parascale, as well as Google and Amazon.
At least one analyst thinks the underlying technology isn't important when it comes to the storage leftovers approach. "Seanodes is interesting, however they need to get people to see the business benefit and move potential adopters beyond the 'Geez, that's interesting and cool' phase to the 'Hummm, wonder where I could actually deploy and adopt the technology' phase," says analyst Greg Schulz of the StorageIO Group.
According to Schulz, the kind of solution proposed by Seanodes and others would be a good fit for use with Flash-based SSD cards for servers. Meanwhile, he thinks it's interesting to keep an eye on the shared-storage crowd, including vendors that specialize in virtual machines for storage, like FalconStor.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
