Pillar Data Systems Leads Storage Efficiency Initiative, Continues Unprecedented Growth, Innovation
Pillar Led the Charge in 2007-The Year of Green Storage
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(Business Wire)--From green to virtualization, the storage industry saw many new
trends emerge and blossom in 2007. Pillar Data Systems, a leading
provider of enterprise network storage systems, was at the forefront
of these trends, while maintaining its leadership in innovation and
service for its growing worldwide customer base.
In 2007, Pillar brought several new executives on board, including
Bob Maness, vice president of marketing; David Zimmer, vice president
of worldwide channel sales; and Curtis Wittich, vice president of
worldwide sales; and promoted Nancy Holleran to president. With its
new management team in place, the company is executing on its plan to
deliver innovative storage solutions, while lowering total cost of
ownership for its customers. Due to its strong customer commitment,
2007 was also the year Pillar was able to showcase its 200th client -
Virgin Games. The company closed 2007 with more than 300 worldwide
customers.
Additionally, Pillar achieved several significant milestones for
2007 including:
-- Significant revenue growth from the previous year;
-- An increase of its indirect channel business to nearly 70
percent of total revenues;
-- Continued investment in the award-winning Axiom platform,
bringing new features/functionality to market;
-- First to market disk drive technologies as they became market
available - 750GB, 1TB SATA disk drives, 300GB FC drive;
-- Geographic expansion into three new regions of Europe
(Southern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe) and Asia/Pacific
with a May Japan launch;
-- Introduced a new set of professional services offerings, the
Pillar Pulse suite of services;
-- Industry leadership in overall disk utilization (both written
data and allocated space), increasing the overall efficiency
and value of a storage subsystem;
-- Continued leadership in the unified storage platform market;
-- Introduced a new CEO blog, providing insightful, candid
perspectives on the storage industry.
Delivering on the Efficiency Promise
In addition to announcing the Efficiency Quotient earlier this
year, which sets the industry benchmark for evaluating data storage
efficiencies, 2007 also marked the second year of shipping the Pillar
Axiom system. As part of many organizations' goals to achieve better
efficiency levels, customers have chosen to deploy the Axiom to unite
SAN and NAS and consolidate multiple tiers of storage on a single
platform to enable the utmost in storage efficiency. The cost savings
and efficiency gains of those who have deployed the Pillar Axiom are
unrivaled by competitive systems, and many have touted its benefits,
including 75 percent savings on energy costs.
"We have been working with Pillar for a couple of years now and
not only has the company met our storage needs, but it continues to
exceed them," said Vince Delperdang, IT manager, O'Donnell/Akins.
"Since adding the Axiom system, we have been able to scale our system
as we grow. The beauty of it is that we are able to store more
information in less space, which allows us to keep our overall
operational costs at a minimum. The Axiom is an efficient, flexible,
reliable storage system that keeps our business operations up while it
drives our environmental costs down."
"What separates Pillar from other vendors is its commitment to
driving true efficiencies for its customers," said Arun Taneja,
founder and consulting analyst, The Taneja Group. "During the past
year, Pillar has made significant strides in raising utilization rates
for its customers, as the Axiom storage system is one of the most
efficient disk systems on the market today. By driving utilization
rates so high without suffering performance losses, Pillar customers
are deriving maximum value out of their storage investments."
As part of a year of many firsts for the company, Pillar was one
of the first organizations to join the Green Grid, a consortium that
drives the IT industry forward in delivering more efficient
technologies to help lower energy and space costs and improve data
center efficiencies. Additionally, as one of the first vendors to
offer 1TB SATA drives, end users experienced even greater savings when
deploying the Axiom with this drive space. Pillar Axiom users on
average have seen industry-leading, 62-percent written disk
utilization, and one third of those customers are utilizing more than
80 percent of their disk array resources.
Driving Virtualization Market
During the course of the year, Pillar has made significant strides
in strengthening its relationships with Oracle and VMware. The most
recent announcement was support for the Oracle(R) VM server
virtualization software. Together, Oracle VM and Pillar's
virtualization of tiered storage provide a highly flexible, scalable,
and efficient architecture for Oracle applications. The strength of
the Pillar Axiom lies in its ability to separate and prioritize the
performance requirements for Oracle Application Server or Oracle
Database 11g running on each Oracle VM. Additionally, it allows the
system to expand storage capacity or performance in line with the
user's dynamic requirements.
This announcement was just the final in a series of many for 2007.
As a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork, Pillar already has published
several Validated Configurations as part of the Oracle Unbreakable
Linux program. In addition, the company will extend that support to
include Oracle VM, which will enable end users to drive maximum
storage efficiency in Oracle and non-Oracle environments.
Additionally, Pillar announced its inclusion in VMware's
Technology Alliance Partner program. The Pillar Axiom storage platform
is architected to help users consolidate their storage resources,
while simplifying management to reduce the cost to acquire,
administer, and maintain midrange storage systems. Aligned tightly
with VMware's ability to maximize efficiency for the server
environment, Pillar integrates with VMware Infrastructure 3 gives
users increased Quality of Service (QoS) at the storage layer. This
allows for improved storage resource allocation, a highly available
architecture and enhanced interoperability with the current
infrastructure, which ensures that customers can drive maximum storage
efficiency in a variety of application environments
Industry Recognition - Across the Globe
For its innovative technology and unrivaled customer service,
Pillar earned the following industry accolades:
-- Storage Products Guide - Pillar Data Systems was recognized as
one of the publication's 2007 Storage "Hot Companies" winners.
This prestigious honor comes to Pillar based upon a stern
selection criterion of what the publication calls the 4Ps,
namely Products, People, Performance, and Potential behind the
company's growing success.
-- Storries Awards (U.K.) - Pillar Data Systems' Axiom product
was named the winner for the Editor's Choice and Disk Product
of the Year for these U.K.-based awards.
-- ServerWatch Storage Product of the Year - The Pillar Axiom
system was named runner-up in the storage system category.
-- Best of VMworld - Pillar Data Systems Axiom was named a
finalist at this year's show.
"Our company has always strived to help our customers get the most
out of their storage system, while eliminating overall cost. We
deliver on this promise every day, and 2007 proved how well we've
executed on that plan," said Mike Workman, chairman and CEO of Pillar
Data Systems. "Pillar had an extraordinary 2007. We are excited that
our customers have seen the benefits of our Axiom system, and we can't
wait to see what 2008 has in store for us all."
About Pillar Data Systems
Founded in 2001, Pillar Data Systems develops midrange and
enterprise network storage systems. The company's Pillar Axiom
solution, driven by its innovative policy-based management
capabilities, integrates SAN and NAS into a centrally managed storage
platform. Pillar Axiom systems consolidate multiple tiers of
enterprise network storage into a single, easily managed system
capable of scaling to hundreds of terabytes of capacity. Pillar Data
Systems is privately funded by Tako Ventures, LLC, the venture arm of
Larry Ellison. The company is headquartered at 2840 Junction Avenue,
San Jose, California 95134. The company can be reached on the Web at
http://www.pillardata.com, by phone at 408-503-4000 or by email at
sales@pillardata.com.
Pillar Data Systems, Pillar Axiom, and the Pillar logo are all
trademarks of Pillar Data Systems. Other company and product names may
be trademarks of their respective owners.
Pillar Data Systems
Chris Drago, 408-518-4636
Director of Public Relations
cdrago@pillardata.com
or
Lois Paul & Partners
Don Jennings, 781-782-5756
don_jennings@lpp.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
