Nexsan Acquistion Puts Imation on SME Storage Solution Provider Short List
There is a tendency to look at Big Data and private cloud storage strictly from the perspective of enterprises that need to manage petabytes (PBs) of data. But small and midsized enterprises (SMEs) have their own smaller Big Data and private cloud storage needs that require they manage and store tens or hundreds of terabytes (TBs) of data with just a few people. Imation's recent announcement that it is acquiring Nexsan Corporation gives SMEs a compelling new option to pursue to meet their specific Big Data and cloud storage requirements.
Big Data and cloud storage (private or public) are often thought of only in the context of "Large Enterprise" but a new study reveals that the size of company most challenged by these new trends are not necessarily large organizations. Rather it is companies that are more appropriately classified as SMEs that face some of the largest implementation challenges going forward.
In its November 2012 study that included responses from 1,428 IT professionals, IDG Enterprise found that 60% of them believe their big data integration will be very/extremely challenging. Further, these respondents also anticipated that the amount of data being managed by their organization will increase by an average of 53% in the coming 12 - 18 months.
A noteworthy statistic coming out of this study is the average amount of data being managed by these organizations. While the term "petabyte" is often bandied about in the media, this study found most organizations only manage about 195 TBs now which they anticipate increasing to 297 TBs by the end of 2013/early 2014. So even in a year or so, they will be managing less than one third of a petabyte of data.
This amount of data is what makes Imation's recent acquisition of Nexsan significant on a number of fronts.
First, Imation's primary goal is to provide scalable storage solutions. With its DataGuard and InfiniVault RDX-based storage lines, Imation can effectively scale to about 100 TBs of online storage capacity. While this amount of capacity is sufficient to meet the specific needs of SMBs, it precluded Imation from effectively going after SMEs since their capacity needs are on average in the hundreds of TBs.
Imation's acquisition of Nexsan gives it the ability to provide storage solutions for SMEs. Nexsan offers SAN, NAS, Unified and Data Archiving systems that are more specifically targeted at SMEs. For example, the Nexsan E60 with its E60X expansion unit scales up to 480TB which is right in the SME sweet spot.
Second, Imation gives Nexsan global scale. Nexsan is a well-respected and trusted brand name within the storage industry with its products well-known for their durability and reliability. However, Imation over the years has had the advantage of bringing products to market in more than 100 countries through an established distribution network, giving it broader name recognition in many regions. Nexsan now gets to take advantage of Imation's prowess in that area while Imation can capitalize on the knowledge that it has a reliable and trusted product that Imation may now leverage to reach SMEs and, in so doing, expand its storage presence.
Third, and maybe most importantly, SMEs have a new storage solution provider from a trusted organization from which to choose to meet their Big Data and cloud storage needs. To date about the only providers that could effectively meet the needs of both SMBs and SMEs were Dell, EMC and HP.
With Imation's acquisition of Nexsan, Imation now also has the portfolio of storage products to effectively compete in this space and give these other providers a run for their money as Imation can focus on being premier storage provider for the SME organizations. This may become significant since 53% of the respondents in the IDG study could not identify a clear thought leader in the big data solution space.
Big Data and cloud storage are emerging as top priorities for all size companies in 2013 with 44% of them in the early stages of selecting a solution to handle their data and another 43% with no plans to put in place a solution in 2013. Since many of these are SMEs, they need providers that offer storage solutions specifically tailored to meet their needs and price points. By Imation adding Nexsan to its broader storage portfolio, SMEs have at their fingertips a new storage provider that has the right solutions to meet their specific Big Data and cloud storage needs.
Big Data and cloud storage (private or public) are often thought of only in the context of "Large Enterprise" but a new study reveals that the size of company most challenged by these new trends are not necessarily large organizations. Rather it is companies that are more appropriately classified as SMEs that face some of the largest implementation challenges going forward.
In its November 2012 study that included responses from 1,428 IT professionals, IDG Enterprise found that 60% of them believe their big data integration will be very/extremely challenging. Further, these respondents also anticipated that the amount of data being managed by their organization will increase by an average of 53% in the coming 12 - 18 months.
A noteworthy statistic coming out of this study is the average amount of data being managed by these organizations. While the term "petabyte" is often bandied about in the media, this study found most organizations only manage about 195 TBs now which they anticipate increasing to 297 TBs by the end of 2013/early 2014. So even in a year or so, they will be managing less than one third of a petabyte of data.
This amount of data is what makes Imation's recent acquisition of Nexsan significant on a number of fronts.
First, Imation's primary goal is to provide scalable storage solutions. With its DataGuard and InfiniVault RDX-based storage lines, Imation can effectively scale to about 100 TBs of online storage capacity. While this amount of capacity is sufficient to meet the specific needs of SMBs, it precluded Imation from effectively going after SMEs since their capacity needs are on average in the hundreds of TBs.
Imation's acquisition of Nexsan gives it the ability to provide storage solutions for SMEs. Nexsan offers SAN, NAS, Unified and Data Archiving systems that are more specifically targeted at SMEs. For example, the Nexsan E60 with its E60X expansion unit scales up to 480TB which is right in the SME sweet spot.
Second, Imation gives Nexsan global scale. Nexsan is a well-respected and trusted brand name within the storage industry with its products well-known for their durability and reliability. However, Imation over the years has had the advantage of bringing products to market in more than 100 countries through an established distribution network, giving it broader name recognition in many regions. Nexsan now gets to take advantage of Imation's prowess in that area while Imation can capitalize on the knowledge that it has a reliable and trusted product that Imation may now leverage to reach SMEs and, in so doing, expand its storage presence.
Third, and maybe most importantly, SMEs have a new storage solution provider from a trusted organization from which to choose to meet their Big Data and cloud storage needs. To date about the only providers that could effectively meet the needs of both SMBs and SMEs were Dell, EMC and HP.
With Imation's acquisition of Nexsan, Imation now also has the portfolio of storage products to effectively compete in this space and give these other providers a run for their money as Imation can focus on being premier storage provider for the SME organizations. This may become significant since 53% of the respondents in the IDG study could not identify a clear thought leader in the big data solution space.
Big Data and cloud storage are emerging as top priorities for all size companies in 2013 with 44% of them in the early stages of selecting a solution to handle their data and another 43% with no plans to put in place a solution in 2013. Since many of these are SMEs, they need providers that offer storage solutions specifically tailored to meet their needs and price points. By Imation adding Nexsan to its broader storage portfolio, SMEs have at their fingertips a new storage provider that has the right solutions to meet their specific Big Data and cloud storage needs.
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