Another Israeli Storage Start-Up Acquired by a U.S. Storage Giant: Onaro by NetApp

NetApp announced a definitive merger agreement to acquire Onaro, a
privately-owned company headquartered in Boston, Mass. Onaro’s
software, deployed in 32% of Fortune 50 companies, allows enterprises
to manage storage with the highest possible data availability at a
fraction of normal operational costs. The combination of NetApp and
Onaro will help enterprise organizations increase data center and
storage network efficiencies by proactively managing and optimizing
storage service levels for availability and performance in dynamic data
center environments. The predictive nature of Onaro products also makes
them ideally suited for modeling and forecasting data center and
service-level changes—capabilities that customers sorely need as they
upgrade, rethink, and deploy their next-generation data centers.

For NetApp, this deal signals a continued strengthening of the
company’s storage and data management software portfolio. NetApp has
rapidly expanded its storage management offerings over the last few
years and the addition of Onaro to the mix should be compelling to
customers who want one expert to help them with their storage
architecture challenges.

For existing NetApp customers, the acquisition of Onaro enables
powerful new storage service management and change management
capabilities. For Onaro customers, the acquisition brings to Onaro
products a significant R&D engine and financial strength to
significantly advance product development over the coming years. For
new customers, the NetApp and Onaro solution offers the opportunity to
effectively deploy and manage service-level large-scale storage
networks using cost-effective and highly scalable modular systems. They
no longer will need to rely on monolithic legacy systems that are
expensive and cumbersome in today’s era of rapid data center evolution.

"I am very excited about the breakthroughs we can achieve for
our customers with the addition of Onaro to our manageability
portfolio," said Tom Georgens, executive vice president, Product
Operations at NetApp. "This deal is not just a first for the industry,
but also a new opportunity for customers to rethink their large-scale
storage infrastructures—and gain extra confidence in the strength of
modular systems to manage the biggest data challenges out there."

Onaro extends NetApp vision and strategy for integrated data
management in the data center, whether using NetApp or other than
NetApp storage systems, and complements traditional SRM products. As
storage networks continue to grow, IT managers face an increasingly
complex challenge to document change, assess compliance to best
practices, and diagnose root cause in real time. Onaro’s products rise
to meet that challenge. An application-centric view of performance,
availability, and change management results in better levels of service
for each application on a storage network, making consolidation and
migration projects easier to plan for and manage.

"Eighty percent of all IT operational issues such as
application outages, performance problems, and downtime result from
unwitting change. Customers tell us they are being asked to commit to
almost impossible levels of service to avoid these problems, which
drain precious resources," continued Georgens. "They are looking to us
for a solution to obtain a better view and gain more control over their
storage systems, not just as physical devices but as a set of services.
With the addition of Onaro, our ability to provide the underlying
modular storage architecture as well as policy-based storage management
software will help enterprises commit to escalating service levels
required by their business in the near term and to proactively continue
to navigate changes in their data centers."

"We are excited and look forward to joining the outstanding
team at NetApp," said Doug McNary, president and CEO at Onaro, Inc.
"NetApp global channels and its powerful brand will accelerate Onaro’s
ability to address the growing worldwide demand for our products. Our
technologies and strategies are very complementary and will enable the
combined companies to offer customers comprehensive storage management
solutions for the data center."

Network Appliance

Onaro, Inc.