Deepfile to Unveil Data Manager

As a foil to buying more of today's complex and expensive storage, enterprise users are better off if they more carefully use their current products, according to Deepfile. Such is the business case for the Deepfile Auditor appliance and Deepfile Enforcer

As a foil to buying more of todays complex and expensive storage, enterprise users are better off if they more carefully use their current products, Deepfile Corp. officials say.

Such is the business case for the Deepfile Auditor appliance, launched earlier this year, and Deepfile Enforcer, to launch next week, CEO Jeff Erramouspe said.

"Its really all about getting metadata on all your unstructured files, and organizing that metadata in databases you can then leverage for your applications," he explained, in Austin, Texas.

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Deepfile Auditor works for Netware and Windows, plus the Common Internet File Systems (CIFS) and Network File Systems (NFS) protocols. It costs approximately $10,000 for a one-year license on two terabytes, he said. Enforcer sits on top of that and has 20 predefined policies, and costs about $10,000 per terabyte.

Users can either buy a license or an annual subscription; however, for both products, "We are in the process of rethinking some of our pricing strategies," Erramouspe said.

Next year, Enforcer will get options for users to have custom-defined metadata tags, such as for vertical markets and regulatory compliance, he explained. Another new feature will let multiple administrators determine policies, instead of just one, he said.

Current customers include Polycom Inc., of Pleasanton, Calif., and Vignette Corp., which is Erramouspes former employer, also in Austin. A major retailer will be announced as a customer soon, he added.

Vignettes David Graham, director of IT operations, installed Deepfile Auditor about six months ago. Unlike many startups, Deepfiles message is "a clear concept with a need that resonates," he said. "Were using it data center-wide," he continued. "Our most important data resides on [Network Appliance Inc.s storage]. We needed to get our arms around where is it, what is it… along with the regular consolidation efforts. I dont want to have to buy another terabyte if the data weve got on that doesnt need to be," he said. Auditor works as promised: as soon as it was installed, a test was run on one terabyte of data, and Vignette found that a third of the files hadnt been used in a year, he said.

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