Top Ten Private Storage Networking Companies: Page 21 of 26

Scale Eight storage can be accessed via two methods:

For access to files via a LAN, one of these Global Storage Port devices
is deployed on the customer LAN, and transparently accesses Scale Eight
storage centers as needed. The device appears to servers and applications as
a standard NFS/CIFS (Network File System/Common Internet File System) file
server. Its deployment and service initiation typically require less than
an hour, the company boasts.

For access to files via the WAN, Scale Eight automatically generates an
8RL (authenticated URL) for each file, which enables files to be served from
Scale Eight storage centers directly to an end-user browser. These storage
centers are MTVi Group, Akamai Technologies Inc.

(Nasdaq: AKAM), and Exodus
Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: EXDS), which are all involved in reselling
Scale Eight’s services.

Clever or what? Because of this patent-pending stuff, the VCs and analysts
reckon Scale Eight has a headstart and will go the distance. Its challenge
will be to convince potential customers that its service is better and
cheaper than its competitors, which are popping up like daisies (see
Storage Services Sprout in Europe).

Scale Eight CEO Richard Watts sold his previous company ConvergeNet, a
storage and networking company, to Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:
DELL) in 1999 for $340 million. Scale Eight’s founder and CTO, Joshua Coates, was an
engineer at Inktomi Corp.
(Nasdaq: INKT) and is considered a genius among scaleable clustering experts.