3PAR

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3PAR Inc.
Type Public (NYSE: PAR)
Founded 1999
Headquarters Fremont, California, USA
Key people David Scott, President & Chief Executive Officer
Industry Information storage (hardware and software)
Products InServ, InForm, Thin Provisioning, Dynamic Optimization, Virtual Domains, Virtual Copy, Full Copy, Remote Copy, Recovery Manager for Oracle, Recovery Manager for MS SQL Server, Recovery Manager for MS Exchange, System Tuner, System Reporter, Multipath I/O for IBM AIX, Multipath I/O for MS Windows, Access Guard
Revenue $118.0 million USD (Fiscal 2008)
Employees 426
Website www.3par.com

3PAR Inc. (NYSE: PAR) is an American manufacturer of systems and software for data storage and information management. It is headquartered in Fremont, California, USA. 3PAR produces a range of enterprise storage products, including hardware disk arrays and storage management software. Its company slogan is "Resilient Infrastructure Agility For Less."

3PAR led the development of a new category of disk arrays called Utility Storage[1] that is designed to be the storage foundation for utility computing architectures. Virtualized utility computing architectures provide the platform on which service providers can deliver enterprise IT as a utility service. The emergence of Software as a Service (SaaS), Hardware as a Service (HaaS) and social networking business models deployed via the internet and cloud computing is one example of this trend. Enterprises and government organizations that are turning their IT organizations into internal service bureaus by building shared virtualized infrastructures for flexible workload consolidation are another.

3PAR’s flagship product, the InServ storage server, is the foundation of storage networks in many next generation data centers[2]. It includes the models S400 and S800 which compete with high end monolithic storage arrays like the EMC DMX and HDS USPV, and the model E200 which competes with modular storage arrays like the EMC CX and HP EVA. The same InForm Operating system software suite runs across both the E- and S-class platforms.

[edit] History

3PAR began in 1999. The founders included Jeffrey Price and Ashok Singhal, the P and A in the company's name. The R stands for a third partner, Robert Rogers, who left the company in 2001. David Scott became President and CEO in January 2001. The company’s mission is to make storage solutions simple and efficient.

3PAR first shipped the InServ storage server in September 2002. 3PAR’s primary competitors in data storage are EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. 3PAR has been recognized as a pioneer and champion for a significantly more efficient mechanism for storage provisioning called thin provisioning[3] which it first announced in June 2002 and shipped in 2003.

In September 2007 3PAR opened a second Research and Development office in Belfast, Northern Ireland[4].

The company completed an initial public offering in November 2007[5] and is listed on the NYSE arca. In the same month 3PAR reinforced its innovative software approach with the introduction of Virtual Domains[6] which allows for secure application data isolation on a consolidated storage platform. It is the storage equivalent of virtual machine technology found in server virtualization products. It permits multiple distinct entities to securely share a single disk array while benefiting from improved performance and utilization of resources.

3PAR supplies its customers through a direct sales force in the US, the UK and Germany. It also supplies its InServ platform through storage systems integrators and channel partners in other countries around the world including Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Australia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and South Africa.


[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Byte and Switch, 3PAR Tees Off
  2. ^ Business Week, Hardware Pioneers: The Next Generation
  3. ^ Byte and Switch, 3PAR Debut's 'thin provisioning'
  4. ^ Economy Minister Nigel Dodds announces arrival of 3PAR to Northern Ireland
  5. ^ East Bay Times, 3PAR's stock saws in debut
  6. ^ CBR, 3PAR Virtualizes the Box Itself
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