The startup is hoping to tap the trend toward using inexpensive disk storage for intermediate, near-term backup, a concept that has rapidly gained traction in recent months among vendors and enterprise users alike (see Disk Backup's a Red-Hot Idea and our report, Disk Backup 101).
Enterprise Storage Group Inc. analyst Steve Kenniston says the technology really addresses the pain-points of enterprise backup. "This product is great from an end-user perspective," he says. "And it's really simple and straightforward."
Data Domain, which has 27 employees, also has the advantage of not facing many established players offering exactly the same kind of product, analysts say. Currently, only Avamar Inc. appears to be offering something fairly similar. Avamar's Axion system uses a proprietary technology to eliminate storing multiple copies of redundant data, thereby reducing the overall amount of disk storage required for backup by as much as 90 percent, it says (see Avamar Gets More Dough and Avamar Kicks It to Disk).
As great as the Data Domain technology might be, however, the company is bound to face the typical startup problem of getting companies to trust their valuable data to a newcomer without a lot of cash in its pocket. The company, which received $9.3 million in its first round of funding last October from Greylock and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), says it will be looking for another funding round toward the end of this year (see Data Domain Rakes In $9.3M).
Moreover, Kenniston cautions that Data Domain may have trouble finding any OEM partners, since its aim is basically to reduce the amount of disk or tape the large storage vendors sell. "If I'm EMC, why would I OEM this when it means selling less disk space?"
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