Shoden UK Partnering With Data Domain

Shoden Data Systems UK, a provider of data storage solutions for organisations facing backup and data recovery challenges, announced that after building relationships with several leading technology partners and hiring highly skilled technical and sales experts throughout 2008, it is now publicly trading across the UK. Today it also announced a new partnership with Data Domain, the leading provider of data deduplication storage systems.
 
Shoden UK offers businesses a compelling alternative to tape-based backup for mainframes; by exploiting Data Domain’s leading-edge de-duplication storage systems, Shoden UK’s QuickRecover appliance eliminates the need for real or virtual tape, the traditional backup medium in mainframe environments.
 
Shoden UK was set up by Philip Jones, CTO, and John Taffinder, CEO, with the support of the company’s South African parent Shoden Data Systems (Pty) Ltd. Taffinder, a thirty-year veteran of the storage industry, has held roles such as GM for Europe at 3PAR, and EVP and GM for EMEA at Hitachi Data Systems, and has a proven track record of successfully expanding businesses in new markets. His broad executive management skills also provide Shoden UK with the necessary leadership to establish the company in the UK and beyond. Jones has similarly extensive experience of the storage industry, having held product marketing and management positions at Hitachi and IBM among others. Jones has pushed the adoption of new technologies across EMEA for over twenty years, covering disk, tape, and storage management.
 
“Shoden Data Systems has designed, built and delivered a unique approach to removing the need for tape as a backup medium in the mainframe environment, thus overcoming a major barrier for IT managers looking for successful backup solutions. As Shoden UK, we are now bringing the same solutions, benefits and support philosophy to the UK market,” said John Taffinder, CEO at Shoden Data Systems UK.
 
“Shoden’s ability to deliver new levels of storage efficiency to mainframe users has been successfully proven in South Africa,“  said Beth White, vice president of marketing for Data Domain. “Shoden has demonstrated the flexibility of Data Domain systems in large mainframe deployments including the storage management and reliability characteristics demanded by this class of user.  This announcement means Shoden will extend the benefits of Data Domain deduplication storage to datacentre users in the UK as well.”
 
In addition to its relationship with Data Domain, today Shoden Data Systems UK has partnership agreements with Luminex, Hitachi and Texas Memory Systems.