Network Appliance Forms Worldwide Organization to Deliver High Availability
Storage Systems to the Oil and Gas Industry
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Apr 18, 2000 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Leading Oil and Gas Companies Choose NetApp to Simplify Data
Management
Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP), the leading provider of network-attached
data access and management solutions, today announced the establishment of a
worldwide oil and gas organization to meet the growing geo-computing demands of
NetApp(R) energy sector customers and integration partners.
Driven by commitments from leading oil and gas customers that have chosen
Network Appliance(TM) systems, the formation of the organization strengthens
Network Appliance's strategy to be a leading storage systems supplier for the
energy sector, one of the fastest growing vertical markets for enterprise-class
network storage and data management solutions. According to International Data
Corporation, the total market opportunity for open storage systems in the oil
and gas industry, including systems for scientific, seismic, and GIS analysis,
exceeds $500 million.
NetApp has already established industry momentum with system installations at
leading oil and gas companies including BP Amoco, Shell, Chevron, Mobil,
Schlumberger, Western Geophysical, and Landmark Graphics. Today's announcement
is a cornerstone of NetApp's business plan to penetrate large vertical markets
by securing key customer relationships and forging partnerships with the
established suppliers and integrators in the industry. The newly established oil
and gas organization is based in Houston, Texas, and has a global service
capability that securely positions Network Appliance's presence in the world's
leading oil and gas markets.
"The oil and gas industry has experienced tremendous growth in its online
storage and data access requirements for managing and instantaneously accessing
extremely large geo-computing data files that can range from megabytes to
hundreds of gigabytes," said Jenel Hazlett, IT infrastructure advisor for
recently-acquired Mobil Oil Corporation. "NetApp allows us to maintain a robust
computing infrastructure that supports our Offshore Deepwater Exploration with
over 99.99% data availability. Their systems are simple, reliable, and easy to
manage."
In particular, NetApp geo-computing solutions target both the escalating data
demands of the exploration and production sector of the industry and the ongoing
consolidation and Web-enablement of downstream operations. To maintain a
competitive edge, energy companies must employ tightly integrated data access
and management solutions, which can scale to multiple terabytes while optimizing
performance and data availability. These issues are exacerbated by the
transition of key business applications from UNIX(R) platforms to Windows(R)
platforms and by the need to share critical information between these
environments and clients on the Web. NetApp has a proven, scalable multiprotocol
solution to assist in this transition.
"Network-attached storage (NAS) is recognized today as one of the fastest
growing segments of the storage market and companies are expanding their use of
NAS-based storage networking solutions from Network Appliance. With today's
investment, we plan to establish strategic business relationships with key
partners that will enable us to leverage our technical expertise and architect
the best storage and data access solutions for oil and gas customers," said Tom
Mendoza, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Network Appliance. "By
helping customers simplify and consolidate their large, enterprise-class storage
requirements, we will be helping them solve a critical problem - maximizing the
value of storage resources in today's oil and gas data centers."
Network Appliance is a leading supplier of computer systems that manage the
storage and data access of today's most successful Global 2000 corporations.
NetApp products leverage the performance benefits of network-attached storage
technology to solve the critical issues of delivering fast, simple, and reliable
access to information in networked business environments.
"The business-critical, high-risk decisions of where to drill for oil and gas
depend on accurate and timely interpretation of vast amounts of seismic data
that is often widely distributed and slow to retrieve," said Vaughn Miller,
director of business development for the energy sector for Network Appliance.
"Our focus within this industry is to leverage the tremendous success NetApp has
experienced in other data intensive markets such as Web hosting and e-commerce,
applying the same appliance-based benefits of highly performing, highly
scalable, consolidated data access that is simple to manage. By partnering with
our oil and gas customers and the industry's key application providers, we can
deliver optimized, packaged solutions and documented best-practices for
streamlining and accelerating geo-computing environments."
About Network Appliance
Network Appliance, a veteran in network file serving and caching, has been
providing data access solutions since 1992, and is a member of both the S+P 500
and NASDAQ 100 index. Major corporations and ISPs, including Lycos, Yahoo!,
Citicorp Securities, Siemens, Lockheed, Cisco, Motorola, and Texas Instruments
have deployed NetApp solutions. NetApp Internet caching solutions (NetCache(tm)
appliances) and file servers (filers) deliver fast, simple, reliable and
cost-effective access to network-stored data and enable simultaneous shared file
services for UNIX, Windows NT and the World Wide Web.
The company pioneered the concept of the "network appliance," an extension of
the industry trend toward dedicated, specialized products that perform a single
function. Network Appliance filers and NetCache appliances are based on the
company's innovative data access software known as the Data ONTAP(tm) operating
system and standards-compliant hardware. More information is available at
netapp.com.
Note to Editors: NetApp and the Network Appliance logo are registered trademarks
and Network Appliance, NetCache, and Data ONTAP are trademarks of Network
Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Windows and Windows NT is a
trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S and other countries. UNIX is a
registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries, licensed exclusively
through X/Open Company Limited. All other brands or products are trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.
Distributed via COMTEX.
Copyright (C) 2000 Business Wire. All rights reserved.
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CONTACT: Network Appliance, Inc.
Adam Trunkey, 408/822-6314
atrunkey@netapp.com
KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS
HUMAN
RESOURCES
INTERNET
NETWORKING
OIL/GAS
ENERGY
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