Block, file and object storage software supplier DataCore has bought MayaData and its Kubernetes storage business for an undisclosed sum. DataCore’s Caringo object storage software has notched up two seven-figure deals with a prominent west coast US technology supplier and a US government department.
MayaData develops and sells its MayaStore OpenEBS-based, hyper-converged, container-attached, block storage software into the Kubernetes market. It comes with a so-called Maya orchestrator. MayaData also offers Kubera as a Kubernetes management software layer that includes OpenEBS and physical storage layer management.
Dave Zabrowski, CEO of Datacore, said: “With this acquisition, DataCore is proud to remain the independent software-defined storage vendor with the broadest product offering spanning block, file, object, HCI, and now container-native storage — and the deepest IP portfolio.”
He wants us to know that: “We are committed to investing in OpenEBS as an open source technology, and expanding the community of users, developers, and contributors around it, while providing a streamlined path to leveraging container storage fast, easily, and affordably. You’ll be hearing from us soon with additional solutions for this space.”
MayaData
MayaData was founded as CloudByte in 2011, relaunched as MayaData in 2018 when Evan Powell became its CEO, and has taken in $32 million in funding. In March this year Intel said: “OpenEBS MayaStor is the fastest open source storage for Kubernetes.” A CNCF 2020 Survey cited OpenEBS as the number one cloud-native storage software used in production.
MayaData’s entire San Jose, CA-based team becomes part of DataCore, which will support and invest in OpenEBS and the community around it, and accelerate product development and go- to-market activities. DataCore’s channel can now resell the MayaData software.
The MayaData acquisition deepens DataCore’s involvement with Kubernetes — its SANsymphony product already has a CSI plug-in.
Nick Connolly, technical lead for the CNCF Technical Advisory Group on Storage and DataCore’s chief scientist, said: “MayaData inside DataCore will have the technical resources to reach a wider community of enterprises, faster, while meeting the strict technical requirements of enterprise applications.”
Kiran Mova, architect and maintainer of OpenEBS, also co-founder and chief architect at MayaData, said: “OpenEBS has become the de-facto standard for enterprise workloads on Kubernetes. OpenEBS is seeing millions of pulls every month, and every survey shows it has a good lead on other storage technologies, which reflects the technical superiority of its architecture.”
Timeline
- April 2008 — Venture Capital firm Insight Venture Partners and Updata Partners invest $30 million in DataCore.
- April 2018 — Dave Zabrowski becomes DataCore CEO as prior CEO George Teixeira becomes chairman.
- February 2020 — $26 million invested in MayaData by AME Cloud Ventures, DataCore and Insight Partners. DataCore gets minority share of MayaData, access to its technology and becomes a MayaData reseller.
- January 2021 — DataCore buys Caringo and its Swarm object storage technology.
- September 2021 — Don Williams becomes MayaData CEO with ex-CEO Evan Powell staying on the board.
- November 2021 — DataCore buys MayaData.
In a briefing, Zabrowski told Blocks & Files that Pure Storage’s Portworx was less open than the community-focussed OpenEBS and that Pure Storage was hardware-led, unlike DataCore.
Dave Zabrowski
DataCore CEO Dave Zabrowski was the co-founder and CEO of Cloud Cruiser from 2010 to 2017. Before that he’d been a CEO at Neterion and a general manager at HP. Neterion was acquired by Exar in 2010. Cloud Cruiser developed SaaS application software that provided analytical insights into hybrid cloud consumption for enterprises, SIs and service providers. Its software was licensed by HPE, Cloud Cruiser’s largest customer, as part of its Flexible Capacity offering. This enabled HPE to meter and bill for usage of on-premise IT infrastructure in a pay-as-you-go, cloud economics model
Cloud Cruiser, which had raised $20.7 million in funding, was bought by HPE in January 2017 for an unrevealed amount. Cloud Cruiser became the HPE Consumption Analytics Portal, part of GreenLake Flex Capacity. Zabrowski stayed with HPE for a few months and then joined DataCore.
DataCore and Caringo deals
DataCore tells us that it has made two major, seven-figure deals for its Caringo object storage software. Neither customer was identified beyond one being a significant US technology supplier and the other a US government organisation. DataCore does not have FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) certification but some its US reselling system house partners do.
This means DataCore potentially beat Cloudian, Dell EMC ECS, Minio, NetApp StorageGRID, Scality and other competition. That causes us to uprate our idea of Caringo’s technology capabilities and see DataCore as an enterprise object storage supplier.
Zabrowski said he wants DataCore to become the largest privately owned storage software supplier. Yes, an IPO could lie ahead. However, both of Zabrowski’s two previous companies — Neterion and Cloud Cruiser — were acquired.
Comment
DataCore has expanded into the Kubernetes storage space and its storage protocol coverage for applications looks like this:
There are possibilities for MayaData to use DataCore’s file and object technology portfolio. We were surprised to learn that Caringo has won seven-figure enterprise storage deals, having thought it more of a small and medium enterprise supplier — and a niche one at that.
An examination of Zabrowski’s background, together with the Caringo deals, suggests that DataCore could well emerge to be a significant enterprise storage player — one to be considered alongside the mainstream suppliers. It has not had a relationship with Gartner that gets it entry into Magic Quadrants and Critical Capabilities reports and such like. Zabrowski said that could well change as DataCore becomes more active in its enterprise marketing.
