Pioneering Open Convergence for VM Clouds: Datrium Inc

‘Converging storage and compute in a radical new way, modeled on public cloud IaaS services instead of traditional 3-tier infrastructure or hyper convergence.’

The leader in Open Convergence for private clouds, Datrium converges storage and compute in a radical new way—modeled on public cloud IaaS versus traditional converged infrastructure or hyper-convergence. Customers gain elastic performance and capacity with simple VM-centric management and analytics, and ultimately a simpler journey to hybrid clouds. Datrium is led by the founders and early top architects of Data Domain and VMware. 

The company offers Datrium DVX, a new breed of server-storage convergence for private clouds called Open Convergence. Datrium DVX includes software that is uploaded to ESX servers toprovide IO processing and caching of active data; and an HA data serverthat provides simple off-host shared durable capacity. The companyalso offers solutions in the areas of private cloud consolidation, SQL Server and data warehousing,and virtual desktop infrastructure. Datrium, Inc. was incorporated in 2012, and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

In Conversation with the Key Executive

Why was the company set up? How did you select the vertical and decide to be a part of the global platform?

Datrium is led by the founders and early top architects of Data Domain and VMware who, back in 2012, foresaw a fundamental shift in infrastructure convergence, particularly as it related to private and hybrid cloud computing. The market for traditional storage infrastructure alone is more than 20 Billion, a massive TAM for a disruptive private cloud infrastructure platform.

Tell us about your first product that was launched.

The Datrium DVX converges storage and compute in a radical new way—modeled on public cloud IaaS versus traditional converged infrastructure or hyper-convergence.  Customers gain elastic performance and capacity with simple VM-centric management and analytics, and ultimately a simpler journey to hybrid clouds.

How successful was your first project roll out? Share the experience.

The reaction from customers has been incredible. The application speed delivered has given some ‘hero’ status.  The ease of management and operation has given time back to our customers that they thought was simply not possible.  A number of our early customers were also suffering from tighter budgets, and they again were astonished at the economics of the Datrium solution and how much money they were able to save with Open Convergence.

What kind of mixed responses have you received from your consumers over the years? How have they motivated you to shape your offerings/grow the company?

Our platform is new—just about a year old, so the question does not apply to us. However, the motivation for the company stems from the complexity and cost oftraditional arrays for cloud computing, and the shortcomings of hyperconvergence in supporting customers’ cloud journey.  We have taken the ‘mixed responses’ from other platforms and paradigms in the industry and clean-sheeted Open Convergence.

If you have to list five factors that have been/are the biggest asset to your organization, what would they be and why?

• Talented employees: Smart, motivated and visionary
• Quality product: It does what we say it can, or more, with the quality of a time-tested and mature product
• Loyal customers: Willing to share their excitement about the product/company
• Enthusiastic go-to-market partners in the channel: We bring them a net-new revenue stream instead of replacing something already in their portfolio; they provide us incredible reach/coverage
• The market visibility of hyperconvergence: yes we compete, but the awareness generated for server-powered alternatives to traditional arrays is priceless

 What do you feel are the reasons behind your product popularity?

• Application performance that is better than all-flash arrays
• Simplicity at scale that beats hyperconverged infrastructure and approaches public cloud ease
• Economics for uncertain times that can reduce costs/TCO in half
• Perfect market timing for server-powered storage alternatives in the heart of the data center

Are there any trigger factors/events/individuals that have played key roles in shaping your organization’s road map?

The emergence of AWS as an alternative to traditional IT infrastructure is prominent. Its availability is proving to IT that infrastructure does not need to be hard to assemble and maintain, it just might have a different pricing profile.  It has driven us to create a product that is radically easier to operate for enterprises who want more control over their infrastructure and don’t want to outsource to AWS (sometimes because the pricing doesn’t work for them.)

Do you have any new products ready to be/getting ready to be rolled out into the market?

Yes indeed, we have significant product announcements planned for late February and early April, 2017.

Where do you see you and your company a couple of years from now?

A leader for hybrid cloud infrastructure for enterprises, SaaS and IaaS service providers.

Meet the Key Executives

Brian Biles, CEO and Co-Founder: Brian was also co-founder and VP of Product and Bus Dev at Data Domain, a unicorn purchased by EMC in 2009. 

Hugo Patterson, CTO and Co-Founder: Hugo was an early employee and CTO at Data Domain with Brian.

“Like our leadership, Datrium is a balance of people who come from virtualization and storage backgrounds.”