Nimble Storage

HPE Nimble Storage is a predictive flash storage technology developed by Nimble Storage that was based in San Jose, California founded in early 2008. Nimble Storage produced hardware and software products for data storage, specifically data storage arrays that use the iSCSI and Fibre Channel protocols and includes data backup and data protection features.[1] Nimble is a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.[2]

Dawn at Nimble Storage's campus in San Jose, California
HPE Nimble Storage
TypeSubsidiary
IndustryInformation technology, data storage, solid state drives
Founded2008
Headquarters
San Jose, California
,
United States
Key people
Varun Mehta, co-founder
Umesh Maheshwari, co-founder and CTO
Suresh Vasudevan, CEO
ProductsAF-Series Predictive All Flash arrays: AF1000, AF3000, AF5000, AF7000, AF9000 CS-Series Adaptive Flash arrays: CS1000/H, CS3000, CS5000, CS7000
Number of employees
1000+
ParentHewlett Packard Enterprise
Websitewww.hpe.com/storage/nimble

History

Nimble Storage was founded in January 2008 by Varun Mehta and Umesh Maheshwari. Nimble announced its first product, the CS200 series hybrid arrays, in July 2010 at Tech Field Day.[3]

The company received a total of $98 million in venture capital funding in 5 rounds from a total of 7 investors.[4] A third round of $16 million was announced in December 2010 from existing investors Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital.[5] In September 2012, Nimble Storage secured $40.7 million[6] from original backers as well as new investors Artis Capital Management and GGV Capital.[7]

Varun Mehta was chief executive until March 2011, when he became vice president of engineering and Suresh Vasudevan became CEO.[8] Umesh Maheshwari became chief technology officer.

In October 2013 the company filed for its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.[8][9] Nimble Storage went public on the NYSE on December 13, 2013, under the ticker symbol NMBL.

In June 2014, Nimble Storage announced the CS700 Series Arrays and an All-Flash Shelf, as well as its Adaptive Flash technology.[10]

In August 2014, Nimble Storage completed an overhaul of their CS-Series, and added the CS300 and CS500 to their line-up.

In November 2014, Nimble Storage released arrays supporting the Fibre Channel protocol.

In July 2015, Nimble Storage announced updates to the Adaptive Flash platform, including Nimble SmartSecure (software-based encryption), all-flash service levels, the addition of REST APIs, InfoSight-VMVision per-VM monitoring, and integrated data protection.[11]

In August 2015, Nimble Storage announces the completion of Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 Certification from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the Adaptive Flash platform.[12]

In November, 2015, Nimble Storage was sixth on Deloitte's ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and energy tech companies in North America.[13]

In December 2015, Nimble Storage announced an expanded SmartStack technology for Cisco Systems products.[14]

On February 23, 2016, Nimble Storage unveiled the Predictive All Flash Array series, combining fast flash performance with InfoSight Predictive Analytics.[15]

On August 10, 2016, Nimble Storage announced the AF-1000 Series All Flash array as well as an updated CS-Series Adaptive Flash array portfolio.[16][17]

On October 17, 2016, Lenovo announced a strategic partnership with Nimble Storage. The first line of offerings from this partnership is the ThinkAgile CX Series solution.[18]

On March 7, 2017, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced they are to buy Nimble Storage for approx $1.09 billion cash.[19] The acquisition became final on April 5, 2017.[2]

Products

All Flash Arrays

Nimble Storage's AF-Series arrays utilize flash performance as well as InfoSight Predictive Analytics. The AF-Series has product lines for data centers with different configurations based on the desired workload. The product lines are AF1000, AF3000, AF5000, AF7000, and AF9000.

Adaptive Flash Arrays

The Nimble CS-Series iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage array has 4 product lines for data centers available in each CS-Series. The product lines are CS200, CS300, CS500, and CS700 and combine both HDDs with SSDs in a hybrid fashion. In August, 2016, Nimble Storage updated their CS-Series arrays to the following: CS1000/H, CS3000, CS5000, and CS7000. Nimble Storage also provides an All-Flash Shelf to add to CS-Series arrays.

Secondary Flash Arrays

The Secondary Flash Array was the first new Nimble product to be launched post merger with HPE. It is a hybrid system based around the standard Nimble architecture but with enhanced dedupe. The product is intended as a target for backups[20]

SmartStack reference architectures

Nimble Storage provides SmartStack integrated infrastructure technology for Cisco Systems. Jointly developed by Cisco and Nimble Storage, these SmartStack integrates compute, network, and storage resources. SmartStack provides Cisco Validated Designs and reference architectures that address the following workloads: desktop virtualization (or VDI), server virtualization and cloud computing, business-critical applications, Oracle database and applications, and SAP HANA.[14]

Technology

NimbleOS

NimbleOS is Nimble's operating system heavily dependent on a patented file-system architecture, cache accelerated sequential layout (CASL). NimbleOS includes: flexible flash scaling, adaptive flash service levels, dynamic flash-based read caching, write-optimized data layout, inline compression, scale-to-fit flexibility, scale out, snapshots and integrated data protection, efficient replication, deduplication, and zero-copy clones.

InfoSight Predictive Analytics

InfoSight is Nimble Storage's storage management and predictive analytics portal. It is designed to help with storage resource management as well as customer support.

InfoSight consists of:

  • The InfoSight Engine: a data collection and analysis engine composed of data analytics, system modeling capabilities, and predictive algorithms.
  • The InfoSight Portal: a secure online portal which serves as a window into the InfoSight Engine.
  • Proactive Wellness: proactive alerts for system health, performance, and protection gaps.

Unified Flash Fabric

Nimble Storage's Unified Flash Fabric unifies Nimble's All Flash and Adaptive Flash arrays into a single consolidation architecture with common data services.[21] This architecture is built upon existing CASL[22][23] architecture and InfoSight.

References
  1. Mearian, Lucas (July 16, 2010). "Nimble's all-in-one storage combines primary and backup in one box". Computerworld. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  2. "HPE has completed the acquisition of Nimble Storage". Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  3. http://www.nimblestorage.com/news-events/press-releases/nimble-storage-announces-industrys-first-converged-storage-and-backup-solution
  4. "Nimble Storage CrunchBase". CrunchBase. CrunchBase Inc. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  5. "Nimble Storage Closes $16 Million in Over-Subscribed Series C Round of Funding". Press release. December 8, 2010.
  6. Joseph F. Kovar (September 10, 2012). "Nimble Storage Closes $40.7M Funding Round, Plots IPO". Computer Reseller News. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
  7. Christina Farr (September 10, 2012). "Nimble storage pulls in $40M as it readies for global expansion and an IPO". Venture Beat. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
  8. "Registration Statement". Form S-1. US Securities and Exchange Commission. October 18, 2013. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
  9. Eric Blattberg (October 18, 2013). "Data storage company Nimble Storage files for $150M IPO". Venture Beat. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
  10. Withers, Stephen (12 June 2014). "Nimble goes big with CS700 adaptive flash array". ITWire. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  11. Armstrong, Adam (July 17, 2015). "Nimble Updates Adaptive Flash Platform With Several New Benefits". Storage Review. Storage Review, Inc. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  12. "Nimble Storage OpenSSL FIPS Object Module" (PDF). OpenSSL Software Foundation. June 2015. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  13. "Deloitte's 2015 Technology Fast 500 Ranking" (PDF). Deloitte. November 2015. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  14. "Cisco SmartStack Solution". Cisco. December 2015. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  15. "Nimble Storage Leapfrogs Competition Unveils Predictive All Flash Arrays". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved 2016-02-23.
  16. Deutscher, Maria (August 10, 2016). "Nimble Storage unveils new $40K entry-level flash array". SiliconANGLE. SiliconANGLE Media. Retrieved August 10, 2016.
  17. Culp, Natassia (August 10, 2016). "Nimble Storage Offers Aggressive Entry Point to All-Flash With New Predictive Flash Array". MarketWired. Nasdaq, Inc. Retrieved August 10, 2016.
  18. "Lenovo, Nimble Storage Partner to Transform the Data Center". www.lenovo.com. Lenovo. October 17, 2016. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  19. "Hewlett Packard Enterprise to buy Nimble Storage for $1.09 billion". Reuters. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  20. Mellor, Chris (May 2017). "HPE's Nimble Secondary Flash Array uses... disk?". The Register.
  21. Kovar, Joseph F. "Nimble Storage Takes On EMC, Pure Storage With First All-Flash Storage Array". CRN. Retrieved 2016-03-10.
  22. Shanks, Eric. "CASL with Nimble Storage". TheITHollow. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
  23. Kolomyeytsev, Anton. "HERE'S WHAT LSFS (WAFL, CASL) IS ABOUT: WHERE LOG-STRUCTURING CONCEPT CAME FROM, WHAT IT'S GOOD FOR AND WHY". MSMVPBlogs. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.