Imation Extends Data Management Reach via Nexsan Acquisition

Regardless of the size of the organization, managing data has become a problem that requires a combination of technologies to handle primary, secondary and now tertiary storage requirements. Looking to address the needs of secondary and tertiary storage requirements, Imation today announced it has acquired Nexsan, a provider of storage systems that are most commonly used to manage data at rest.

As a spinoff of 3M, Imation has been steadily evolving its business model beyond tape media to address a much wider range of data management issues. Prior to Nexsan, Imation acquired several companies and technology assets, including Encryptx, Iron Key and Nine Technologies. According to Ian Williams, group president for tiered storage solution at Imation, the long-term goal is to bring together storage, data management and security technologies in a way that makes it simpler for organizations to holistically manage the storing, backing up and archiving of data.

While Nexsan offers a broad range of storage systems, its primary claim to fame is the cost-effective management of data at rest. According to Nexsan CEO Philip Black, interest in Nexsan technology is on the rise because organizations need to distinguish between data that needs to be readily available and data that simply needs to be archived for compliance purposes. Given the total cost of storage these days, Black says that the only way organizations can really reduce their IT costs is to be more aggressive about where data is actually stored based on its monetary value to the business.

Obviously, cloud computing provides a low-cost place to store data, but organizations still need to have the tools in place to actually move data into the cloud and then secure it wherever it resides, says Black.

With the rising volume of data that organizations are trying to manage, it’s obvious that many organizations will need to re-evaluate their data management strategies in the year ahead. The degree that leads them to opt for new vendor partners remains to be seen. But what is for certain is that for most IT organizations, the old way of managing data simply isn’t going to cut it anymore.