NetApp

NetApp, Inc.
Public
Traded as NASDAQ: NTAP
S&P 500 Component
Industry Data storage and management
Founded 1992 (1992)
Founder David Hitz
James Lau
Michael Malcolm
Headquarters 495 East Java Drive
Sunnyvale, California, USA
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 George Kurian (CEO)
Mike Nevens (Chairman of the Board)
Products Data storage hardware and software
Revenue Decrease $ 6.12 billion (2015)[1]
Decrease $ 716.5 million (2015)[1]
Decrease $ 560 million (2015)[1]
Total assets Increase $ 9.401 billion (2015)[1]
Total equity Decrease $ 3.414 billion (2015)[1]
Number of employees
 12,650 (Q2 FY2014)[2]
Website Official website

NetApp, Inc. is a storage and data management company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It is a member of the NASDAQ-100,[3] and has ranked in the Fortune 500 since 2012.[4] Founded in 1992[2] with an IPO in 1995,[5] NetApp offers software, systems and services to manage and store data, including its proprietary Data ONTAP operating system.[6]

History

NetApp headquarters in Sunnyvale, California

NetApp was founded in 1992 by David Hitz, James Lau,[7] and Michael Malcolm.[2][8] At the time, its major competitor was Auspex Systems. In 1994, NetApp received venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital.[9] It had its initial public offering in 1995. NetApp 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, NetApp's revenues quickly declined to $800 million in its fiscal year 2002. Since then, the company's revenues have steadily climbed.

In 2006, NetApp sold the NetCache product line to Blue Coat Systems. In 2014, NetApp acquired Riverbed Technology's SteelStore line of data backup and protection products,[10] which it later renamed as AltaVault.[11] On June 1, 2015, Tom Georgens stepped down as CEO and was replaced by George Kurian.[12][13] In December 2015, NetApp acquired flash storage vendor SolidFire for $870 million.[14]

Competition

NetApp competes in the data-storage devices industry.[15] In 2009, NetApp ranked second in market capitalization in its industry behind EMC Corporation and ahead of Seagate Technology, Western Digital, Brocade, Imation, and Quantum.[16] In total revenue of 2009, NetApp ranked behind EMC, Seagate, Western Digital, and ahead of Imation, Brocade, Xyratex, and Hutchinson Technology.[17] According to a 2010 IDC report, NetApp ranked third in the network storage industry "Big 5's list", behind EMC and IBM, and ahead of HP and Dell, with the list's largest annual revenue growth at 47.4%.

Products

Main article: NetApp filer
NetApp FAS3240 (second from bottom) with three DS4243 shelves on top

The line of NetApp filers has served as the company's flagship product from the very beginning. A filer is a type of disk-storage device which owns and controls a filesystem, and presents files and directories to hosts over the network. This scheme is sometimes called file storage, as opposed to the block storage which major storage vendors like EMC Corporation and Hitachi Data Systems have traditionally provided.

NetApp's filers initially used NFS and SMB protocols based on standard local area networks (LANs), whereas block storage consolidation required storage area networks (SANs) implemented with the Fibre Channel (FC) protocol. In 2002, in an attempt to increase market share, NetApp added block-storage access as well. As of 2016 NetApp systems support it via FC protocol, the iSCSI protocol, and the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol.

The filers use NetApp's proprietary operating system called Data ONTAP which includes code from Berkeley Net/2 BSD Unix, Spinnaker Networks technology, and other operating systems.[18] Data ONTAP originally only supported NFS, but later added support for SMB, iSCSI and Fibre Channel (including Fibre Channel over Ethernet). At one point NetApp provided two variants of Data ONTAP. Data ONTAP 7G and a nearly complete rewrite[18] called Data ONTAP GX, based upon grid technology acquired from Spinnaker Networks. In 2010 these software product lines merged into one OS - Data ONTAP 8, which folded Data ONTAP 7G onto the Data ONTAP GX cluster platform. Data ONTAP 8 has two distinct operating modes - 7-Mode and Cluster-Mode.

NetApp's OnCommand management software controls and automates data-storage.[19]

Reception

Controversy

Syrian surveillance

In November 2011, during the 2011 Syrian uprising, NetApp was named as one of several companies whose products were being used in the Syrian government crackdown. The equipment was allegedly sold to the Syrians by an authorized NetApp reseller.[20]

On April 7, 2014, NetApp was notified by the US Department of Commerce "that it had completed its review of this matter and determined that NetApp had not violated the U.S. export laws", and that the file on the matter had been closed.[21]

Legal dispute with Sun Microsystems

In September 2007, NetApp started proceedings against Sun Microsystems, claiming that the ZFS File System developed by Sun infringed its patents.[22] The following month, Sun announced plans to countersue based on alleged misuse by NetApp of Sun's own patented technology.[23] Several of NetApp's patent claims were rejected on the basis of prior art after re-examination by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.[24] On September 9, 2010, NetApp announced an agreement with Oracle Corporation (the new owner of Sun Microsystems) to dismiss the suits.[25]

Accolades

NetApp was listed amongst Silicon Valley Top 25 Corporate Philanthropists in 2013.[26]

Work environment

NetApp's work environment has received acknowledgement. The company ranked first on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2009[27] and fifth in 2010.[28] This is the seventh 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. NetApp Canada was ranked #2 by the Great Place to Work Institute[29] on the 75 Best Workplaces list for 2010. It was third in the "25 Best Global Companies to Work For" list by Great Place to Work Institute in 2011.[30] NetApp was ranked third in Great Place to Work's 2013 "World's Best Multinational Workplaces".[31] It received #41 on the 2013 Best Places to Work[32] and 2013 Work Life Balance Award by Glassdoor.[33] In 2014, NetApp ranked #2 on Business Insider's list of "20 Most Flexible Employers in America".[34]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "NetApp Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2015 Results" (PDF). NetApp. 24 April 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 "Corporate brief". NetApp. Retrieved September 27, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Historical Data – NASDAQ-100 Index". Nasdaq.com. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  4. ↑ "NetApp". Fortune 500. Time Inc. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  5. ↑ "FAQs". NetApp. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  6. ↑ "Company Snapshot" (PDF). NetApp. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
  7. ↑ "Executive Bios". NetApp. 2012. Retrieved 2012-04-13.
  8. ↑ "Michael Malcolm Resigns as Chairman of the Board of CacheFlow to Focus on New Start-Up Opportunity". Business Wire. 13 November 2000. Retrieved 2009-04-14.
  9. ↑ "Sequoia Capital funds NetApp".
  10. ↑ Gagliordi, Natalie (27 October 2014). "NetApp buys Riverbed Technology's Steelstore business". ZDNet. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  11. ↑ Adshead, Antony (18 May 2015). "NetApp launches AltaVault hybrid cloud backup appliance family". ComputerWeekly. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  12. ↑ "NetApp Announces Changes to Executive Leadership Team and Board of Directors". NetApp. 2015-06-01. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
  13. ↑ "NetApp Announces Changes to Executive Leadership Team and Board of Directors". Investing.com. 2015-06-01. Retrieved 2015-06-02.
  14. ↑ Novet, Jordan (21 December 2015). "NetApp acquires flash storage vendor SolidFire for $870M". VentureBeat. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  15. ↑ "Industry Center - Data Storage Devices Overview". Yahoo! Finance. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-14.
  16. ↑ "Industry Center - Data Storage Devices, Leaders in Market Capitalization". Yahoo! Finance. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-14.
  17. ↑ "Industry Center - Data Storage Devices, Leaders in Total Revenue (ttm)". Yahoo! Finance. 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-14.
  18. 1 2 "Is Data ONTAP Based On UNIX?". 2007-04-27.
  19. ↑ Raj, Pethuru; Raman, Anupama; Nagaraj, Dhivya; Duggirala, Siddhartha (2015). High-Performance Big-Data Analytics: Computing Systems and Approaches. Computer Communications and Networks. Springer. p. 242. ISBN 9783319207445. Retrieved 2016-02-09. NetApp OnCommand management software and Cisco Unified Computing System Manager tools help you optimize your server and network environment, handling hundreds of resources for thousands of virtual machines. OnCommand controls and automates your data storage infrastructure.
  20. ↑ "Companies That Aid Syria Crackdown Deserve Sanctions’ Slap: View". Businessweek. 2011-11-14. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
  21. ↑ "NetApp response to allegations of potential use of equipment in Syria". NetApp. 2014-04-09. Retrieved 2014-05-23.
  22. ↑ "NetApp files patent suit against Sun". September 5, 2007.
  23. ↑ "Sun plans to countersue NetApp". October 24, 2007.
  24. ↑ "NetApp Patent Lawsuit Against ZFS Open Source Technology". Archived from the original on 2010-11-09. Retrieved August 13, 2010.
  25. ↑ "Oracle, NetApp agree to settle ZFS patent litigation". September 10, 2010. Retrieved September 10, 2010.
  26. ↑ "Corporate philanthropy: Meet Silicon Valley's 25 most generous companies".
  27. ↑ Levering, Robert; Moskowitz, Milton (February 2, 2009). "100 Best Companies To Work For". Fortune 159 (2): 78. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
  28. ↑ "100 Best Companies to Work For 2010". Fortune Maganize (CNN). February 8, 2010. Retrieved July 9, 2010.
  29. ↑ "2011 Best Workplaces in Canada". Greatplacetowork.ca. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
  30. ↑ "25 Best Global Companies to Work For". Great Place to Work® Institute (CNN). October 28, 2011.
  31. ↑ "2013 World's Best Multinational".
  32. ↑ "Best Places to Work".
  33. ↑ "Top 25 Companies for Work-Life Balance". glassdoor.com. Retrieved 2015-10-11.
  34. ↑ Stanger, Melissa (2014-04-23). "The 20 Most Flexible Employers In America". businessinsider.com. Business Insider. Retrieved 2015-10-11.

Further reading

External links

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