Catalogic Software teams up with Storware data protection
Catalogic and Storware executives feel their companies complement each other. The two data protection vendors have a distribution agreement and are working in partnership.
The data protection vendor, based in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., said today it has taken an equity stake in Storware, a European data protection company, and formed an exclusive distribution agreement to sell Storware's products in North America. The partnership also means the two companies will work together on developing technology.
The distribution agreement covers two major Storware products: Kodo and vProtect.
The vProtect offering is an enterprise backup product that covers the edge hypervisor market, said Sathya Sankaran, vice president of business development and field CTO at Catalogic. That coverage includes Citrix XenServer, Xen, Red Hat Virtualization, Nutanix Acropolis and KVM, but not the top two hypervisors, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere.
While there is a lot of support for Hyper-V and vSphere, the edge hypervisor market is largely untapped, Sankaran said, and vProtect is especially geared toward enterprises with what he called emerging workloads.
"We felt the technology has huge potential," he said.
Organizations can deploy vProtect as a stand-alone product or use it as a backup staging platform, feeding backup data into IBM Spectrum Protect, Veritas NetBackup, Dell EMC NetWorker or Catalogic's new vStor backup repository, which can be found in the latest update to its DPX data protection software.
"It plays nice with what you have on premise," Sankaran said.
Kodo is a data protection software suite for desktops and laptops, mobile devices and software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms Office 365 and Box.
Sankaran said he hopes to see an increase in the number of supported SaaS providers to include the likes of Salesforce, G Suite and Dropbox.
Catalogic Software, which has close to 1,000 customers, has become known for its copy data management, found in its ECX product.
Sankaran said Storware has been on Catalogic's radar since late last year and culturally "fit us like a glove."
The two companies can play off each other's strengths, said Catalogic Software CEO Ken Barth.
"As we look at this evolving market of data protection, it looks more like data management to us," Barth said. "The broader the coverage we felt was very important."
Docker and OpenStack are also primary targets on Catalogic's roadmap.
While Catalogic did not provide details on its equity in Storware, Sankaran said it is a substantial minority stake.
Kodo and vProtect are both available now from Catalogic Software.
'Common DNA' between Catalogic, Storware
There is very little overlap here, and some great synergies.
Paweł MaczkaCTO, Storware
The alliance with Catalogic Software is part of Storware's strategy to improve its standing in the North American market, said Paweł Maczka, CTO of Storware, which is based in Warsaw, Poland. With the deal, Catalogic essentially becomes Storware's North American arm. Catalogic can also sell Storware products in Europe -- just not in an exclusive manner.
"What's more, we do believe that there is common DNA between the two organizations," Maczka wrote in an email. "Both are experienced vendors with the same approach to the market, specializing in enterprise backup and recovery. The alliance with Catalogic will help spread awareness of Storware technology, and in the end, the knowledge exchange between the two organizations will strengthen both teams."
Maczka said Storware has expertise in hypervisors, mobile platforms and endpoints, while Catalogic Software has proficiency in enterprise storage, high-end database applications and handling a large volume of metadata in a searchable catalog.
"There is very little overlap here, and some great synergies," Maczka wrote. "We've had many joint whiteboard sessions where we've been planning out ways to combine these joint strengths into new solutions."
The two companies have integrated vProtect with Catalogic vStor. In addition to expanding into more SaaS offerings, the companies plan to explore other "underserved" markets, such as containers and next-generation databases, Maczka said.
"Providing effective protection and recovery in these areas is a growing concern for many organizations," Maczka wrote. "Catalogic and Storware are perfectly placed to address these challenges."
