NetApp Wades Into Data Classification

Network Appliance is moving into information classification and management (ICM), thanks to an OEM deal with Kazeon.

Under the terms of the OEM, development, and marketing agreement, Kazeon and NetApp will integrate the intelligent data classification and search capabilities of Kazeon’s Information Server with NetApp’s storage systems, and NetApp will resell Kazeon’s Information Server as part of a jointly marketed solution.

Kazeon is one of a half-dozen players in the ICM space, a technology that promises to bring information lifecycle management (ILM) down to the file level.

“You can’t manage what you can’t see,” said Kazeon marketing vice president Troy Toman. “Classification has to be the starting point for ILM.”

Patrick Rogers, NetApp’s vice president of Products and Partners, said Kazeon’s technology “will allow us to provide compelling information management solutions to customers. Enterprises will now have the ability to find information distributed across the network while reducing the risk of compliance or legal exposures without disrupting their current operations.”

Kazeon also unveiled its new Information Server IS1200, which the startup bills as “the only scalable, integrated, content-aware solution for enterprise information visibility and control.”

Combined with NetApp’s data protection and regulatory compliance offerings, users will be able to conduct legal discovery, continuous compliance auditing, file recovery and data classification for advanced ILM projects.

As part of the agreement, Kazeon will be optimizing its Information Server for NetApp’s Data ONTAP, SnapVault and SnapLock products.

Toman said Kazeon targets unstructured data — the diffuse files that reside outside of databases and are scattered throughout an enterprise — as the starting point. “Starting from nothing and getting to 90% is a big thing,” Toman said. “We don’t claim to be automatic, but we provide the tools to make your environment much more efficient.”

Kazeon says its Information Server IS1200 is an out-of-band, plug-and-play information management appliance that integrates seamlessly with existing infrastructure without affecting user behavior or disrupting data flows. It supports standard interfaces for UNIX and Windows shared files as well as EMC Centera. A single appliance can manage tens of millions of files and appliance clusters can be deployed to manage hundreds of millions of files. Key capabilities include storage search, content-aware data classification and policy-based management.

The IS1200 uses classification data to conduct a range of data management services, including file tagging, copy/move/delete commands and setting retention or encryption policies on supported devices. Services can be automated or done interactively through a search and reporting user interface. An IS1200 can be set up to move files with sensitive information to encrypted storage or copy valuable corporate records into a WORM device with the appropriate retention settings.

Back To Enterprise Storage Forum