NETWORK APPLIANCE

NETWORK APPLIANCE

Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP), commonly known as NetApp, is a network storage and data management company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It is a member of the NASDAQ-100 and ranks on the Fortune 1000.
Network Appliance is credited with the widespread adoption of Network Attached Storage or "NAS" and pioneered Unified Storage. Now Network Appliance storage products support a variety of storage protocols such as iSCSI SAN, Fibre Channel SAN, CIFS and NFS. The key technologies behind most of Network Appliance's product line are the Data ONTAP storage operating system and WAFL file system.
Competition
NetApp competes in the Data Storage Devices industry[1]. NetApp ranks third in market capitalization in its industry, behind EMC and Seagate Technology, and ahead of Western Digital, Brocade, Data Domain, Imation, Quantum, and Isilon [2]. In total revenue, NetApp ranks fourth behind EMC, Seagate, Western Digital, and ahead of Imation, Brocade, Xyratex, and Hutchinson Technology [3]. Note that these lists of competitors do not include companies with significant storage businesses, such as Hewlett Packard, IBM, Hitachi Data Systems, Dell, and Sun Microsystems.
History
Network Appliance was founded in 1992 by David Hitz, James Lau, and Michael Malcolm [4] [5]. At the time, its major competitor was Auspex. It had its initial public offering in 1995. Network Appliance thrived in the internet bubble years of the mid 1990s to 2001, during which the company grew to $1 billion in annual revenue. After the bubble burst, Network Appliance's revenues quickly declined to $800 million in its fiscal year 2002. Since then, the company's revenues have steadily climbed.
Network Appliance also has a long history of making "Best Places to Work" lists. In 2007 the company ranked 6th on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For. This is the fifth consecutive year NetApp has earned a spot on the list, placing in the top 50 each time. NetApp also earned top honors in the "Best Companies to Work for in Research Triangle Park" competition in 2006. Other previous distinctions include making ComputerWorld's "Top 100 Places to Work in IT 2005", "Best Places to Work" in the Greater Bay Area in 2006 by the San Francisco Business Times and the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, and the 8th spot on the 2006 list of "Best Workplaces in Germany" by Capital Magazine.
Software
The operating system for most of Network Appliance's products is Data ONTAP. The distinguishing feature in Data ONTAP is its WAFL file system, and WAFL's data protection capabilities, including snapshots, file system mirroring, and RAID-DP.
NetCache and its uses
The NetCache software formerly produced by Network Appliance is used in Tunisia to censor Internet access. Technically, censorship in Tunisia uses a transparent proxy that processes every HTTP request sent out and filters out sites based on hostnames. Empirical evidence shows that NetApp hardware was used to implement the controls. [6]
Major Acquisitions
1997 - Internet Middleware (IMC). IMC's web proxy caching software became the NetCache product line (which was resold in 2006).
2004 - Spinnaker Networks, Inc. The technology Spinnaker brought to NetApp® was integrated into Data ONTAP GX and first released in 2006.
2005 - Alacritus The technology Alacritus brought to NetApp® was integrated into the NetApp NearStore VTL product line
2005 - Decru. Decru continues to operate as a separate business for data encryption.
2006 - Topio. Software that helps replicate, recover, and protect data over any distance regardless of the underlying server or storage infrastructure.
Major Divestitures
2006 - NetCache product line sold to Blue Coat Systems, Inc.
Divisions
According to NetApp's management biographies , NetApp is divided into three major businesses:
Networked Storage and Manageability
Data Protection and Retention Solutions
Emerging Products Groups, includes:
Security
Virtual Tape
Heterogeneous Replication
StoreVault