Avere Systems

Avere Systems was a privately held technology company that produces computer data storage and data management infrastructure. The company was founded in 2008[1] and is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[2] As of March 2017, the company had raised over $90 million in funding.[3] On January 3, 2018, the company announced that it was being acquired by Microsoft.[4][5]

Avere Systems, Inc
TypePrivate
Founded2008
FounderRonald Bianchini, Jr.
Michael L. Kazar
Dan Nydick
Headquarters
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
,
United States
Key people
Ronald Bianchini, Jr., CEO
Michael L. Kazar, (CTO)
Websitewww.averesystems.com

Avere's clients include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Infectious Diseases, the Library of Congress, Turner Broadcasting and Rising Sun Pictures.[6][7][1]

History

Avere Systems was founded in Pittsburgh in 2008 by Ronald Bianchini, Jr., Ph.D., Michael L. Kazar, Ph.D and Dan Nydick. In December 2008, Avere announced a $15 million (~$18.8 million in 2021) investment led by Menlo Ventures[8] and Norwest Venture Partners.[9] In August 2010, Avere raised $17 million (~$20.9 million in 2021),[10] led by Tenaya Capital [11] with participation of existing investors. In July 2012, Avere raised $20 million (~$23.7 million in 2021),[12] led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.[13] In 2014, the company announced an additional $20 million in venture financing, bringing the total to $72 million. The series D round was led by Western Digital Capital.[14] Kazar, the company's CTO, received a lifetime achievement award in 2013 for his contributions to data storage from the world's largest technology professional membership association. Avere Systems and its CEO, Ronald Bianchini Jr. won the Carnegie Science Award for Information Technology in 2014.[15][16]

In 2014, the company announced an additional $20 million in venture financing, bringing the total to $72 million. The Series D round was led by Western Digital Capital.[17][1] In 2015, Avere was named as Google's cloud platform technology partner of the year.[18]

In March 2017, Avere raised an additional $14 million (~$15.4 million in 2021) in a funding round that included previous investors and Google.[3]

On January 3, 2018, the company announced that it was being acquired by Microsoft.[4] Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.[5]

Operations

Avere Systems released its first FXT Series storage appliances in November 2009. The FXT series uses automated storage tiering to process data. The company launched a virtual version of its filer, called the Virtual FXT Edge filer (vFXT) to enable customers to use cloud compute without moving data from on-premises storage.[19] In 2016, Avere released the FXT 5000 series of edge filers, which doubled performance and capacity over previous models.[20] The 5200 model was released for users with lower performance workloads in April 2016.[21]

In September 2016, Avere released the C2N System, a hybrid NAS/object storage appliance.[22][23]

Avere is a member of the Standards Performance Evaluation Corporation.[24] and has active technology partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, HGST/Amplidata, IBM/Cleversafe, and SwiftStack.[20][25] The Library of Congress uses Avere in its storage network for access to images and other digital resources requested by site visitors.[7] In November 2014, Avere announced selection by the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Office of Infectious Diseases (OID) to power its genomic sequencing storage environment.[6][26]

Avere's technology has been used by visual effects studios for rendering special effects as well as for cloud storage of data available to multiple users. The FXT Edge filers were designed to maximize storage performance to improve workload efficiency. All data is encrypted with AES-256 encryption and complies with federal security standard FIPS 140-2.[20] Visual effects studios such as DreamWorks,[27] Digital Domain,[28] Image Engine[29] and Framestore have been reported as using Avere technology.[30]

References
  1. Jordan Novet (July 10, 2014). "Avere raises $20M to deliver scalable storage for hybrid clouds". Venture Beat. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  2. "Avere Systems, Inc". Bloomberg. Retrieved 3 August 2017.
  3. Weinberger, Matt (March 21, 2017). "Google Made an Unusual Move by Investing Millions in this Pittsburgh Storage Startup". Business Insider. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
  4. "Microsoft buying cloud storage startup Avere Systems". Seattle Times. 3 January 2018. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  5. Novet, Jordan (2018-01-03). "Microsoft buys Avere to boost its hybrid cloud strategy; start-up counted Google among investors". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  6. Peter Judge. "CDC chooses Avere for Data Center Project". datacenterdynamics.com. Data Center Dynamics. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  7. "Avere Wins Library of Congress Data Storage Deal". Bizjournals.com. 2013. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  8. "Menlo Ventures Portfolio". Menlo Ventures. 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-03-30. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  9. "Norwest Venture Portfolio". Norwest Venture Portfolio. 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-04-13. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  10. "Avere Closes $17 Million Series B Funding Round". Eweek.com. 2014. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  11. "Tenaya Capital Portfolio". Tenaya Capital. 2014. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  12. "Avere Raises 20 million in Series C funding". LSVP. 2012. Archived from the original on 2014-04-13. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  13. "LSVP Enterprise Portfolio". LSVP. 2012. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  14. "Avere raises $20 million in Series D venture funding". Press release. July 10, 2014. Retrieved November 17, 2016.
  15. "Cohon, Nordenberg lead winners of Carnegie Science Awards for Universities' Collaboration". CRN.com. 2013. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  16. "Carnegie Science Center Awardees".
  17. Dan Kobialka (July 11, 2014). "Avere Systems Adds $20M in Series D Funds". Talkin Cloud. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  18. Marzouk, Zach (June 21, 2017). "The IT Press Tour: StrongBox Data Solutions, Avere Systems and E8 Storage". IT Pro. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
  19. "Avere Introduces Virtual FXT Edge Filer". EnterpriseTech. 5 November 2014. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  20. Jeff Hyatt (June 2, 2016). "Avere Systems: Making Sense of Unstructured Data". Media & Entertainment Services Alliance. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  21. Eric Doyle (April 18, 2016). "Avere brings FXT 5000 features to the lower end of the market". Datacenter Dynamics. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  22. Anthony Adshead (September 29, 2016). "Is it NAS? Is it object storage? It's both. It's Avere's C2N". Computer Weekly. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  23. Adam Armstron (September 20, 2016). "Avere Unveils Cloud-Core NAS (C2N) System". Storage Review. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  24. "All Published SPEC SFS2008 Results".
  25. Chris Mellor (September 17, 2015). "Avere's SwiftStack S3 hack tack". The Register. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  26. Debra Smit (December 6, 2016). "Avere Systems CEO views data storage from the cloud". Crain's Pittsburgh. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  27. "Dreamworks' Storage Tiers Help Animate Movie Making". Search Storage. 2013. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  28. "Private NAS Cloud Saves Digital Production Studio Millions of Dollars". Search Storage. 2012. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  29. "The Hidden Data Magic Behind 'Zero Dark Thirty'". Bloomberg. 2012. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  30. "Avere Systems Keeps CGI specialists Framestore Rolling". Computing.co.uk. 2012. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
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