FAST Primps for Storage OEMs

When Rob Lancaster, VP of channel development for Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), sat in on an ILM session at a conference a few months back, he was disheartened to hear folk talking about a lack of electronic data classification tools. "I was thinking, 'These people need a little education. We have this today.' "

Marketspeak? Maybe not. FAST's data classification and search technology, InStream, has been on the OEM market for over a year and is incorporated in EMC's CenteraSeek program, as well as in wares from at least 12 other vendors. It's embedded in software from Avamar and in an upcoming product from Archivas set for release on Monday.

To promote all this -- and in response to what Lancaster calls a "huge spike in demand" -- FAST has packaged up its OEM platform, which it plans to unveil Monday. Dubbed InStream for Data Classification, the package is geared specifically to storage system, information management, and data protection OEMs.

"There's a huge demand for functions and services that support OEMs," Lancaster says. And while storage and archiving OEMs are still a "single-digit" portion of the market, the demand for their wares is growing. Even though 60 to 70 percent of revenues (which reached $103 million last year) come from direct sales, the firm claims 40 to 50 OEMs overall.

At the same time, the storage cats have different requirements than vendors who integrate InStream with CRM and other business applications. They don't require as much fancy search intelligence as transaction-based systems, but they do call for greater scaleablity. After all, these days a data archive can be the greediest of all storage elements.Enter the latest InStream -- perhaps not a bad way to goose prospective buyers, especially since users are keen to organize and control what threatens to get out of control.

"People have stored a significant amount of data over the last ten years... The storage industry needs tools to help manage it," says analyst Brian Babineau of Enterprise Strategy Group, commenting on FAST's announcement. FAST's technology can provide that help in a range of ways, including saving storage space. When something crashes, there's no need to restore a whole system or database if you've got the means to find exactly what needs to be restored.

FAST's latest InStream iteration makes data useful by sorting, indexing, and providing interface links to help sift and report on both structured and unstructured data in various software locations (databases, archives, email repositories, and the like).

This is not an off-the-shelf kind of tool. The product's nature as an enabling technology instead of an off-the-shelf package makes it comparable to offerings from Autonomy Corporation plc and more recently Google, which typically makes sense for large enterprises with plenty of IT help. (See Google One-Ups Intranet Search.)

Indeed, since FAST focuses on enterprise applications (the typical engagement price is at least $500,000, Lancaster says), and because it requires knowledgeable, hands-on customization, it's typically used by companies with the resources to implement it -- ones like CareerBuilder.com, Turner Broadcasting System Inc., and TV Guide Online.There are a slew of startups competing in the data classification and search space too, all with varying specialties, approaches, and alliances, including Index Engines, Kazeon, Njini, and Scentric. (See Scentric Gets Classified, Njini Granted $13M, and Kazeon Pairs With NetApp.)

Selection is a matter of finding the right fit, explains ESG's Babineau. "The key criteria include how much data you have, what data types you need to search and locate, and how much sophistication you need."

Lancaster boasts that FAST works better with OEMs than its rivals, providing flexible financial arrangements and plenty of support. Also, he touts the firm's age compared with that of startups. Founded in 1997 in Norway, FAST has 600 employees and is publicly traded on the Oslo exchange. Total deployments? 3,000. Cash in the bank? $300 million. Hardly the stats of a small fry.

All that said, competition from big players is growing. Besides Autonomy and Google, FAST faces the ambitions of enterprise database vendors like IBM and Oracle, who are also seeking -- and getting -- partners in the storage space. (See Oracle Intros Content Mgt Wares.) Microsoft is getting into the act too with its own database and storage initiatives.

At least one of FAST's OEMs, Archivas, is happy with the help FAST has provided and thinks their focus on this segment will keep its momentum. "Packaging [FAST's] product for OEMs makes a ton of sense," says Jeff Spotts, VP of marketing at Archivas. "They have an explicit business focus. They know how to deal with OEMs."Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch

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