Recent customer wins include: Quoizel, Wiss Janey Elstner Associates, Mapics, Fresno Pacific University, LA Valley College, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Vynamics, and Ingersoll Rand. Previous customers include Lockheed Martin, Array Biopharma, and the City & County of Denver (see Engineers Take LeftHand Turn).
"Were finding that with shrinking budgets and headcounts, companies do not have the funds to put staff through Fibre Channel training," says Bangs. "They have the same issues with applications continuing to grow and backup windows getting smaller... But with IP SANs they get the same functionality to solve these problems at a fraction of the cost, and they don't have to turn the company on its head to plug it in."
Interestingly, LeftHand is gaining traction even though its IP SAN storage arrays use a proprietary technology, the Advanced Ethernet Block Storage (AEBS) protocol. Customers load LeftHand's AEBS software on their servers, and it enables various storage virtualization services. In the past, LeftHand executives have said the company's systems will support iSCSI, the emerging standard for IP block-level storage, once it gains market acceptance (see Microsoft to Unleash iSCSI, NetApp Blitzes on iSCSI, and LSI Lines Up iSCSI Mates).
But inquiring minds might ask: If everything is so hunky-dory at LeftHand, why does it need to raise additional capital and presumably give up more ownership of the company?
"As fast as we're ramping, we do need to fund more sales headcount and to build business operations to give us depth across the country," offers Bangs. [Ed. note: Or perhaps, if someone is offering you $20 million in this market you take it. Just a thought.]
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