StorReduce

StorReduce, an Australian deep-tech startup, was founded by Vanessa Wilson, Hugh Emberson, and Mark Bakula. The three co-founders knew each other for over 15 years; Wilson and Emberson were already running another business together, while Emberson and Bakula had been rivals for the top spot in their computer science program at university. The idea for StorReduce emerged from their prior venture, which focused on backing up small to mid-size enterprises using technology created by Emberson. After a mentor validated their technology's potential to move large-scale data from on-premises appliances to the cloud, they pivoted to target the US enterprise market. The company was initially self-funded by Wilson and Emberson before securing investments through connections from programs like Head over Heels and Innovation Bay.

The company developed a cloud-first, software-defined storage solution specializing in deduplication for large-scale unstructured data. Operating as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Big Data company, StorReduce provided a system for businesses dealing with terabytes to petabytes of block data, such as backups, archives, and general files. The core product was a deduplication software that could run on the cloud, like an AWS instance, or on-premise as a virtual machine. Its primary function was to significantly reduce the volume of data stored in cloud object stores like Amazon S3 and Glacier, promising cost reductions of up to 95%. The software worked by removing redundant blocks of data before storage, ensuring only a single copy was kept. This process not only decreased storage costs but also reduced bandwidth needs, which was particularly beneficial for migrating large data archives from tape to the cloud. One of its key features was an S3 compatible interface, which allowed data to be natively accessed by other AWS services.

StorReduce's trajectory culminated in its acquisition by Pure Storage in August 2018, marking Pure Storage's first-ever acquisition. The move was a strategic play by Pure Storage to integrate StorReduce's sophisticated deduplication technology into its object storage portfolio, specifically to enhance its FlashBlade product line and bolster its capabilities in managing unstructured data in multi-cloud environments. Prior to the acquisition, StorReduce had already gained recognition, being named a Gartner Cool Vendor in Storage. The integration resulted in the development of Pure Storage's ObjectEngine, a data protection platform that modernizes backup and recovery processes with a flash-to-flash-to-cloud architecture.

Keywords: data deduplication, cloud storage optimization, unstructured data management, object storage, cloud data migration, data protection, backup and recovery, flash storage, hybrid cloud, AWS S3, data reduction, software-defined storage, storage cost reduction, bandwidth optimization, data tiering, cloud backup, enterprise storage, data archiving, petabyte scale, flash-to-flash-to-cloud