DataDirect Networks (DDN) is one of the storage industry’s best secrets. The company generates more than $100M in revenue, is growing rapidly and earns a nice profit serving a high performance, high bandwidth, mega capacity technical computing niche. That niche is both expanding and becoming more desirable as rich media, video production and Internet content hosting explode.

The requirements of this marketplace are substantially different from those of the traditional enterprise served by companies such as EMC, IBM, Hitachi and NetApp. DDN serves markets such as video-on-demand, digital content hosting across the Web and the storage and distribution of large content files such as medical images. As well, the company's roots in computer modeling and simulation, and other high bandwidth segments position it for the emerging so-called cloud computing space. This market is typified by:

• Petabyte versus terabyte scale (i.e. mega supercomputing);
• Millions versus thousands of users (think Xbox Live);
• Thousands of network nodes versus hundreds of servers;
• Highly distributed versus command and control;
• Self-healing versus backup-and-restore (e.g. Google File System).

The needs of this space deviate radically from conventional enterprise block-based storage. Specifically, rich data puts very high bandwidth and throughput imperatives on I/O subsystems. The traditional solution to meet the needs of this space is to spread reads and writes over multiple systems of servers and arrays. But for many and a growing number of media and Web 2.0 applications, this approach does not come close to meeting the user service level requirements.

Indications from the Wikibon community indicate that DataDirect has developed a solution that is unique in the industry, delivering a sustained, error-free 6 Gigabyte/second read and write capability. SAS and SATA disks can be used to balance storage cost and performance, with up to 1.2 petabytes in a single system. These attributes have allowed DDN to penetrate the following spaces:

• Media & Entertainment, one of the most exciting emerging verticals for DataDirect, serving the needs of companies such as TimeWarner Cable and applications such as Microsoft Xbox Live. DDN has more than 400 broadcast and post production customers;
• Internet content and media hosting which includes digital image storage for companies such as Kodak and Shutterfly. This segment includes applications such as on-line video streaming and other Web 2.0 applications;
• Energy, including oil & gas which encompass very high end simulation and seismic applications;
• CAD/CAM applications in aerospace, semiconductor design and automotive design;
• Emerging life sciences applications;
• Other niches including government security and digital surveillance;

DDN also has a spin down capability which will aid in tier 3 and 4 archival applications served today by virtual tape libraries and conventional tape.

On balance, it appears that DDN is quietly leading this space with a combination of intense focus, years of R&D, substantial intellectual property and an impressive customer base. The Wikibon community feels this is one supplier that is worth watching as a trend setter in a marketplace that is not yet well defined, nor addressed by traditional players. It appears that where bandwidth is king, DDN has royalty in its DNA.

Action Item: CTO's looking to develop high bandwidth applications for emerging Web 2.0 opportunities should investigate the DataDirect technology. As well, in situations where technical applications, rich-media, high-speed backup or applications with multiple large streams to a single source require very high I/O throughput, DataDirect should be on the vendor short list.

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