Cloud backup and storage supplier Backblaze announced the launch of a proposed follow-on public offering of $30,000,000 of shares of its Class A common stock. In addition, Backblaze expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional $4,500,000 of shares of Common Stock from Backblaze at the public offering price less the underwriting discount. The offering is subject to market and other conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.
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Data protector Catalogic Software announced DPX vPlus 7.0, which includes:
- Integration: DPX vPlus now supports Red Hat OpenShift, Proxmox with CEPH, and Canonical OpenStack, including full and incremental backups, file-level restores, and snapshot management.
- Redesigned configuration wizard enhances the setup experience
- Enhanced Security with AES-256 encryption for Microsoft 365 at rest and in transit. DPX vPlus now supports Impossible Cloud S3 storage, providing secure, high-performance backup destinations.
- Expanded Hypervisor Support with Nutanix AHV and Nutanix Ready certification.
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Real-time data replicator Cirata launched its Data Migration as a Service (DMaaS), powered by its Data Migrator software. This enables businesses to efficiently migrate Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) data, Hive metadata, and cloud data sources to various cloud platforms, including Amazon S3, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2, Google Cloud Storage, and Oracle Object Store, reducing migration timelines and minimizing disruption. It moves data without requiring any changes to existing applications or disrupting production systems, ensuring zero risk of data loss and continuity in business operations. More information here.
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Databricks unveiled a new Economist Impact report, “Unlocking Enterprise AI: Opportunities and Strategies,” which found:
- 90 percent of UK enterprises are using or testing GenAI. Only 40 percent believe their GenAI applications are production-ready.
- 60 percent of UK enterprises admit that GenAI use cases have not yet made it into production internally.
- Key hurdles to making GenAI production-ready include cost (41 percent), skills (40 percent), quality (37 percent) and governance (33 percent).
- By 2027, 96 percent of UK enterprises plan to develop custom models based on proprietary data.
- Only 11 percent of UK respondents believe AI is overhyped. In fact, 83 percent see the technology as crucial to their long-term goals.
- Large organizations are flocking to GenAI, with 97 percent of companies with over $10 billion in revenue globally now using the technology in at least one internal business function. By 2027, 99 percent of all respondents worldwide expect GenAI adoption across both internal and external use cases.
Read the full report here.
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Cloud content collaboration service supplier Egnyte appointed Elizabeth Hajjar as VP Sales, EMEA, responsible for developing and executing the overall sales strategy for the EMEA region and driving revenue growth and market share expansion in EMEA markets.
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Search AI company Elastic announced its AI ecosystem to help enterprise developers accelerate building and deploying their Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) applications. The Elastic AI Ecosystem provides developers with a curated, comprehensive set of AI technologies and tools integrated with the Elasticsearch vector database, designed to speed time-to-market, ROI delivery, and innovation.
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Geyser Data announced GA of its Tape-as-a-Service offering. It was jointly developed by Geyser Data and Spectra Logic, integrating Spectra’s object-based disk and tape technology with Geyser’s Cloud Tape Library software. It provides a cost-effective, enterprise-class cloud archive for businesses requiring large-scale data storage for compliance, disaster recovery, long-term data preservation, and AI-driven workloads. CEO Nelson Nahum previously ran Zadara. TaaS features include no egress or retrieval fees, no hardware required, dedicated tapes per customer with air-gapped isolation, integration with AWS S3, tape energy efficiency, and easy storage capacity expansion.
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Graph AI provider Graphwise announced the immediate availability of GraphDB 10.8, which includes the next-generation Talk-to-Your-Graph functionality that integrates large language models (LLMs) with vector-based retrieval of relevant enterprise information and precise querying of knowledge graphs that hold factual data and domain knowledge. It says this new feature enables non-technical users to derive real-time insights and retrieve and explore complex, multi-faceted data through natural language. It also brings seamless, high-availability cluster deployments across multiple regions, ensuring zero downtime and data consistency without performance compromise.
GraphDB 10.8 reduces the R&D time for GenAI applications by offering a no-code framework based on GenAI-powered agents that intelligently combine multiple retrieval methods to deliver context-rich conversations and reduce non-determinism. To help AI developers fine-tune conversational agents (chatbots), it automatically heals retrieval query errors and provides quick access to the underlying method invocations, results and error messages.
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SaaS data protector Keepit has appointed Fahad Qureshi as VP of Sales for the Americas and ANZ. He joins Keepit from Lumafield, where he served as Head of Sales. Prior to Lumafield, he spent 8 years at Qumulo. His intent is to establish the Americas as a leading market for Keepit’s cloud-native data protection services and use partners to do so.
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Reuters reported Bain-backed Kioxia will have a market value of about 750 billion yen ($4.84 billion) based on the indicative price for its initial public offering, with the chipmaker to receive listing approval from the Tokyo bourse on Friday, according to its sources.
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Estonia-based Leil Storage has introduced its EDU & Research Program, offering universities and research institutions complimentary access to SaunaFS, our customizable open-source file system designed to optimize storage efficiency. For more information visit leil.io/edu or contact Leil at EDU@leil.io
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Elastx Cloud Platform (ECP), a Swedish cloud service provider, has chosen Lightbits to power its OpenStack Cloud Service. Elastx is “leveraging Lightbits’ high-performance, low latency, scalable software-defined storage across OpenStack and Kubernetes clusters for a resilient, cost-effective cloud platform that provides customers with secure, sustainable multi-availability zones for mission-critical applications … based on its seamless integration with OpenStack and Kubernetes, high NVMe-capacity density, high performance, lower TCO, and ease of manageability.”
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MyAirBridge is a Czech-based business supplying Dropbox-like file sharing capabilities. We asked how does it differ from Dropbox? It replied:
- Fair Play for Users: We don’t require recipients to have purchased storage space for data sharing. Only the sender needs a storage plan, allowing the recipient to access files without needing an account.
- Platform Integration: The app combines direct transfer and data-sharing features seamlessly, presenting a minimalist interface with essential functions at your fingertips. Sharing can be customized for view-only, read-only, or read and write, enabling the recipient to upload, copy, and delete files within a shared folder.
- Usability: Smart drag-and-drop functionality detects your current app context, offering relevant options. It supports keyboard shortcuts, dragging, and easy copying for a user-friendly experience.
- Security: No tracking of users, with enhanced protection via CSP, end-to-end encrypted transfers, and options like password protection and 2FA.
- Plans: PRO users can personalize their URL, using it as FTP for data collection, and add images to represent their brand. The Enterprise plan offers transfers with expiration that don’t consume storage capacity, supporting unlimited transfers, even with full storage.
- Teamwork: Teamwork features allow users to have both personal and team profiles, with options to access main storage or a separate space. Enterprise includes 5TB per profile with unlimited team profiles for large organizations.
- Automation & Accessibility: Storage access via WebDAV facilitates backup automation without software installation, with API access as another option. Incoming and outgoing transfers can be set with expiration to optimize capacity, even if the sender uses a free plan.
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Cloud file services supplier Nasuni has revamped its partner program with a new tiered structure and value-based incentives will reward partners for their cloud-based certifications, innovative go-to-market strategies, and software-centric capabilities, rather than focusing on volume and revenue generation. There is a refreshed partner portal, a one-stop shop for partners, offering access to all the tools, resources, and information they need.
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Graph database and analytics startup Neo4j has surpassed $200 million in annual recurring revenue, doubling its ARR over the past three years, and is on track to be cash flow positive in the coming quarters, as well claiming a 44 percent market share. It says it grew rapidly this year as organizations recognized graph databases as essential infrastructure for AI systems that leverage vast amounts of interconnected data. Neo4j is used by 84 percent of all Fortune 100 companies and 58 percent of the Fortune 500. Examples include Daimler, Dun & Bradstreet, EY, IBM, Merck, NASA, UBS, and Walmart.
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On-prem cloud computer rack supplier Oxide says Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s HPC center has just completed installation of its first Oxide Cloud Computer, which will deliver cloud-like features that work seamlessly with HPC jobs, while maintaining security and isolation from other users. It will provide users in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with new capabilities for provisioning secure, virtualized services alongside HPC workloads. LLNL plans to work with Oxide on additional capabilities and the deployment of additional Cloud Computers. LLNL particularly liked Oxide’s scale-out and disaster recovery capabilities. Oxide Computer states that the latest installation underscores its momentum in the federal technology ecosystem.
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Redis and Microsoft announced Azure Managed Redis, a fully managed, first-party Redis offering now available in public preview on Microsoft Azure. This is the first-of-its-kind multi-tiered Redis service offered by a major cloud provider, including integration with Azure AI and Redis’s vector database capabilities. It features:
- Performance: New data structures, the fastest Redis Query Engine to date, and capabilities like vector search and geospatial queries.
- Reliability: Industry-leading 99.999 percent availability through multi-region Active-Active deployments.
- Flexibility: Seamless migration for Azure Cache for Redis customers and support for diverse workloads, from memory-intensive apps to generative AI.
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Seagate’s Lyve Cloud Object Storage has new flexible, cost-efficient archive tier for infrequent access offering the same millisecond latency, high durability, high throughput and similar SLA service as the Lyve Cloud Object Storage standard tier. The Seagate Lyve infrequent access tier is available via subscription and is priced at $3.75/TB per month. To learn more go to https://www.seagate.com/cloud/.
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There will be an SNIA Swordfish Plugfestduring the week of April 28-May 2, 2025 in Denver, CO, in conjunction with SNIA’s Regional SDC Denver event on April 30. This collaborative Plugfest is targeted at both client users and datacenter infrastructure product developers.
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Cloud data warehouser Snowflake continued its fast revenue growth with a 28 percent year-over-year revenue jump in its Q3 2024 to $942.1 million with a $324.3 million loss. It gained 369 new customers in the quarter, taking its total to 10,618. CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy said: “Our obsessive drive to produce product cohesion and ease of use has built Snowflake into the easiest and most cost effective enterprise data platform. That is what’s leading us to win new logo after new logo, expand within our customer base, and displace our competition over and over again.”
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Snowflake is acquiring Datavolo, which supplies open data integration software powered by Apache NiFi. Datavolo says its software enables customers to capture all their unstructured data for LLM needs and replaces single-use, point-to-point code with fast, flexible, reusable pipelines. It was founded by CEO Joe Witt and COO Luke Roquet in September last year, being just 14 months old, and raised $21 million in an A-round in April. That gives a clue as to how much the acquisition cost Snowflake, providing virtually instant riches to Witt and Roquet.
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Snowflake is partnering with Anthropic in a strategic multi-year partnership to bring Claude 3.5 models directly to customers’ data in Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud. This is to enhance how Snowflake’s data agents can analyze data, run ad-hoc analytics, generate visualizations, and execute other multi-step workflows. Snowflake’s agentic AI products will leverage Claude as one of the LLMs for this.
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Cloud-based real-time analytics company StarTree announced new features in its StarTree Cloud offering:
- Pauseless Ingestion: This maintains continuous data flow during segment building and upload phases, enabling businesses to deliver real-time, reliable insights at scale.
- Performance Manager when using Apache Pinot which simplifies the process of optimizing query performance. It analyzes query structures and metrics to recommend enhancements—such as indexes, bloom filters, derived columns, or star-tree indexes. Users can apply these optimizations with a click, achieving immediate performance gains.
- Schema evolution allows the system to accommodate new fields, indexes, altered data types, or other structural modifications without disrupting operations.
- Data Backfill addresses incorrect or missing data by enabling users to seamlessly reload data from past events, filling any gaps in data flows. This capability is particularly valuable in real-time analytics, where continuous data integrity is essential.
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Management.
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StorONE and Phison have joined forces to deliver a storage system that achieves 1 million IOPS with only four Phison Pascari X200 drives. The two say that, together they redefine data storage efficiency with fewer drives, delivering top-tier performance, comprehensive data protection, and seamless cybersecurity. The joint sytem can use either 15.36 or 30 TB Pascari X200 SSDs.
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VAST Data says VAST 5.2’s new capabilities, including global SMB namespace, Write Buffer Spillover, and S3 Sync Replication, can streamline complex workloads for enterprise, AI, and high-performance computing environments.
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HPC storage supplier VDURA and SSD manufacturer Phison collaborated in a show of strength at this year’s SC24 in Atlanta on Tuesday. In a record-setting feat, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, perhaps best known as “The Mountain” from Game of Thrones, lifted a capacity of 282.624 PB of data weighing in at 996 lb (450 kg). Phison supplied Pascari 122 TB capacity D205V drives for the lift, meaning about 2,316 were needed. The bar, as well as additional equipment, was provided by Rogue Fitness Equipment.
To celebrate the occasion, 2017 America’s Strongest Man, Jerry Pritchett, built customized Silver Dollar Boxes to hold the drives during the lift. VDURA and Phison donated $1,000 each to the Atlanta Community Food Bank. This contribution will help provide over 6,000 meals for local families in need.
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Edge cloud service supplier Zadara has expanded its Sovereign AI Cloud portfolio with AI inference services. AI capabilities have been integrated into all Zadara’s training and certification programs for partners
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Palo Alto-based Zettar, calling itself a pioneer in exascale data transfer technology, announced a new production-ready solution, developed in collaboration with MiTAC Computing, and Nvidia, which revolutionizes high-speed data movement, both bulk and streaming. A single Nvidia BlueField-3 DPU with Zettar zx software transfers up to 500 TB of data per day across any distance, without traditional servers.
The zx software has a <40MB footprint ands runs in the DPUs. The zx transfers massive datasets at wire speed, accelerating critical AI and HPC workflows. It can replace traditional data transport methods like AWS Snowball, advancing data movement across private, hybrid, and public clouds. And it can transform a standard JBOF (Just a Bunch of Flash) into a cluster of collaborative data transfer nodes, achieving linear scalability in a compact form factor.
Zettar founder and CEO Chin Fang said: “The DPUs can do both bulk and streaming data transfers at high speed and nearly the same data rates for 1 MiB-1 TiB, locally (in the same host and/or cluster) and over any distance – latency is irrelevant. It doesn’t need any site-specific tuning and it also addresses a common challenge – casual exchange (i.e. up to a few TBs) of data with collaborators efficiently and easily.”
He added: “With the growing demand for large language models (LLMs), moving hundreds of TBs to many PBs of data over distance for training is becoming a critical challenge. Our DPU-based solution, combined with Zettar-designed data movement appliances available through our hardware partners, significantly enhances the utilization and ROI of large-scale AI and HPC infrastructure while reducing energy consumption.”
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Software RAID vendor Xinnor announced several customer wins for its xiRAID product:
- BeeGFS at one of the leading scientific universities in Singapore: Xinnor has partnered with On Demand System Pte, a prominent system integrator in Singapore, to deploy xiRAID to enhanced BeeGFS file system to optimize high-speed data access in a cluster environment, supporting the university’s advanced research needs.
- Lustre at NHR@FAU: together with Megware, the German expert in HPC, Xinnor helped Friedrich-Alexander-Universität migrating from Ceph to xiRAID + Lustre, improving performance by about 4 times while almost doubling the available user capacity.
- Block Storage at one of the most prominent tech universities in USA: xiRAID has been deployed in all NVMe servers at the university, to provide drive failure protection, while delivering close to theoretical maximum performance, meeting the demands of the institution’s cutting-edge research.
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Xinnor debuted in the IO500 list published at SC24. A Lustre + xiRAID Classic system implemented by MEGWARE has been:
- Ranked #2 among Lustre solutions in the 10-node research category
- Ranked #34 in the 10-node research list
- Ranked #44 in the absolute IO500 research list
