Nexsan Targets CAS Startup

Nexsan Technologies Inc. is about the jump into the content-addressed storage (CAS) market through the acquisition of startup EverTrust.

Sources close to Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Nexsan say the disk-backup vendor will announce Tuesday the deal for EverTrust, which sells software for CAS systems. The purchase could catapult Nexsan into the compliance market, in similar fashion to Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), which jumped into CAS by acquiring Persist Technologies in 2003 (see HP to Acquire Persist Technologies).

Indeed, by buying EverTrust, Nexsan moves into competition with HP, as well as with EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), and with startups Archivas, DataCenter Technologies Inc. (DCT), and Permabit Inc.

The biggest threat here is likely EMC, which was the pioneer in the CAS space, launching Centera in 2002 (see EMC Preps Centera). The most recent entrant into the CAS field was StorageTek, which announced an OEM deal with Permabit in January (see StorageTek Taps Permabit's CAS Act).

Nexsan executives are keeping a tight lid on the news, but one of them says the company expects a product announcement in a month or two. The source says EverTrust will become a division of Nexsan under EverTrust CEO Thomas Gosnell, and the startups employees will be offered positions with Nexsan. EverTrust has offices in Montreal and Lafayette, Calif.The source wouldn’t disclose the price, although the deal will involve cash and stock. EverTrust is giving nothing away; it claims OEM relationships with storage vendors, but doesn’t disclose them.

CAS systems store fixed content -- data that won’t change such as financial records, receipts, and archived email. Nexsan sees the market as a logical extension of its primary product direction, which is low-cost ATA and SATA disk-backup systems. (See ATA Is Where It's AT, Nexsan Ships New ATABeast, and Nexsan Delivers ATAboy2.)

— Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch