Anal Jain

Network Appliance’s (NetApp) new strategy aims to satisfy the need for a single product that offers the flexibility of using it as a SAN or a NAS solution. Called unified storage, it allows customers to use a single platform for handling block and file access.

Anal Jain managing director for Network Appliance in India, said, “Companies had previously picked either the storage area network or the network-attached storage tack, touting one as more effective than the other. Typically, customers buying two different products for SAN and NAS are facing the challenge of keeping a tab on new products, architecture and technology changes. NetApp’s new flagship, FAS900 series, is the first storage appliance supporting Fibre Channel SAN environments that helps deliver the industry’s first unified storage engine capable of handling networked storage in SAN or NAS mode. It can help to reduce TCO substantially.”

NetApp’s approach unified storage eliminates the SAN vs NAS argument that is no longer relevant for today’s data-intensive enterprise. “Customers need a single storage platform, in this case we have Data ONTAP that handles both SAN and NAS, block and file access,” said Jain. He added that the same product is being marketed to SMEs and large enterprises.

Jain said, “Training our partners in this high technology area and technology is critical and needs big investments in the sales, pre-sales and support. We will be spending Rs 1.5 crore by March 2003 in training partners. We will also be appointing another business partner by the end of this year to strengthen our sales channel.” Currently Apara, Wipro Infotech and WeP are NetApp’s business partners in India. NetApp wants to move up from the current number three slot in network storage to number one in the next three years.

The company is focusing on chip design companies, BFSI and telecommunications. Jain adds that oil and gas is a new vertical that NetApp is catering to. “We have ONGC and Saudi Aramco as our customers. NetApp’s other customers in India are — Analog Devices, TI, Oracle, Satyam Infoway, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra and VSNL,” he said.