Cisco and NetApp have joined forces to become strategic investors in Datos IO.
The data management start-up said that it plans to use the investment to further its application centric approach that is said to offer backup storage efficiency and data management services at a granular level.
The three year old start-up has only had a product on the market for just under a year, but it has already grabbed some big customers such as eBay, Macy’s, and Home Depot.
Most of Datos IO’s customers are using it in the public cloud (70%) and 80% of its customers are also already using either NetApp or Cisco products. 
All of this makes this a sensible investment for the two companies, Datos IO’s technology serves as an important component for businesses using cloud as a core part of its IT. For NetApp and Cisco, this the kind of the technology it wants to be associated with in order to boost their own cloud stories.
Rob Salvagno, head of Cisco Investments and vice president of Cisco corporate development, said:
“As data is increasingly moving to the cloud, customers need solutions that can bridge boundaries across private, public and hybrid clouds.”
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Datos IO says that its differentiators are that it offers an elastic data management engine that can be scaled up or down based on load. It also provides direct transfer of data from data sources to secondary storage.
The start-up also offers semantic deduplication, BI search built on top of a globally distributed metadata catalog.
Mark Bregman, Chief Technology Officer, NetApp, said: “Datos IO and NetApp share the same vision to reduce complexity in the hybrid cloud so that customers have the freedom to manage their data in whatever manner best meets their needs.
“Datos IO’s unique architecture approach and differentiated capabilities in data protection and data mobility complement our Data Fabric strategy, which is focused on providing rich enterprise data management services. We are impressed with Datos IO’s execution to date as they expand their business in the fast-growing segment of third-platform applications.”
