eliminate backup software

Rubrik launches out of stealth with ambitious plan to “eliminate backup software” in the enterprise

A team of veteran engineers and technology executives exited stealth this morning to change how organizations protect their most sensitive information. The 22-strong Rubrik Inc. hopes to stop at nothing short of “redefining” the multi-billion-dollar data protection market.

Or at least that’s what the Palo Alto-based startup claims, but details on how the all-star team plans to reach that ambitious goal still remain scarce. The press release sent out on occasion of the launch comes short of divulging many specifics about its software, revealing just enough to make out a general outline of what founding CEO Bipul Sinha

(above) has in store.

The Converged Data Management platform is described as the end of a long “innovation drought” in the backup world that can help organizations manage information across both on- and off-premise infrastructure. A canned quote from Sinha seems to confirm what the name suggests, that the software attempts to provide an end-to-end data protection solution.

The platform is apparently already mature enough to be used in production, with another quote coming from a small customer called Langs Building Supplies that boasts of having removed the “need for backup software or globally deduplicated storage” in its environment thanks to Rubrik. That provides the first tangible hint as to what the startup is offering.

The closest outside fit with that description are the centralized copy management solutions from Actifio Inc. and Catalogic Inc., the latter of which recently introduced a cloud-based implementation of its technology. The service creates a “master version” of a file that is shared across every part of the data protection lifecycle and, just like Rubrik’s platform, offers to provide a converged alternative to the complex toolchains that organizations have traditionally used to handle backups.

Moreover, both place an emphasis on simplicity, promising setup times of only minutes in a pitch that appears to be geared toward small- and medium-sized businesses. But the similarity of the value propositions doesn’t necessarily mean that Sinha’s startup can expect a hard time standing out.

Rubrik boasts having filed no fewer than 135 patent applications since its establishment last year, a hefty number indicating that the team may have just managed to create an offering unique enough to qualify as a redefining addition to the data protection fray. The $10 million that the startup has raised from Lightspeed Venture Partners, where Sinha serves as an investor, and a group of angel backers including Microsoft chairman John Thompson in conjunction with the launch seems to confirm that.

About Maria Deutscher

Maria Deutscher is a staff writer for SiliconANGLE covering all things enterprise and fresh. Her work takes her from the bowels of the corporate network up to the great free ranges of the open-source ecosystem and back on a daily basis, with the occasional pit stop in the world of end-users. She is especially passionate about cloud computing and data analytics, although she also has a soft spot for stories that diverge from the beaten track to provide a more unique perspective on the complexities of the industry.

Reference: - http://bit.ly/1Be3wqI