Background

The market for unstructured data management tools is growing. While it’s a market with some big names, it’s also a space with no dominant players. IBM Corporation plays here with its uniquely innovative IBM Storage Discover (recently renamed from IBM Spectrum Discover) and IBM StoredIQ offerings. Veritas has its Data Insights product. DataIQ from Dell Technologies is an excellent tool, as is NetApp’s Cloud Data Sense. The list continues. There are plenty of options from which to choose. 

Komprise is a company in this space to which I’ve been increasingly paying attention. Founded in 2014, Komprise is singularly focused on solving big unstructured data problems. It’s an interesting company with an innovative approach to managing unstructured data. Komprise has good momentum, which continues today with the announcement of a new stand-alone data analysis tool that will help control your data sprawl and costs. 

News: Komprise Unstructured Data Management Report 

I appreciate vendors who publish primary research about the spaces in which they play. Komprise has done this for the past two years, publishing a survey that offers a glimpse into the unstructured data world. The company’s 2022 State of Unstructured Data Management Report revealed some statistics that might help you feel better about your unstructured data mess. You might not feel better for long, though, as you might recognize some of your challenges within these statistics.  

Here are some stats offered up by Komprise, all gathered in a survey of more than 300 IT leaders, that illustrate the challenges faced by IT organizations in controlling data sprawl and cost: 

• More than 50% of enterprises manage at least 5PB of data.
• At least 80% of that data is unstructured.
• 89% of that data lives in a hybrid-cloud, multi-cloud, or cloud-only infrastructure.
• Nearly 68% spend over 30% of their IT budget on data storage, management and protection. 
• Almost 70% said they would spend more on storage this year than last. 

That’s a lot of data, and a lot of money. Storing data in the cloud can lead to increased flexibility and lower costs, but only for the careful IT administrator. There are countless horror stories about storage running amok on the cloud, where you pay per byte to store it and move it around. Beyond cost, security and governance are high-priority challenges. For example, you want to avoid serving your sensitive data from an accidentally misconfigured S3 bucket on AWS. 

Komprise Analysis 

Komprise has long serviced the unstructured data management market with its Komprise Intelligent Data Management platform. Among its capabilities, Komprise’s complete platform offers functionality for managing an enterprise’s unstructured data. These features include intelligent data migration, transparent tiering and archiving, continuous replication, and cyber-resiliency. It also has innovative capabilities for analyzing unstructured data and optimizing cloud data usage and cost. 

Today Komprise announced Komprise Analysis, a new SaaS solution for analyzing an enterprise’s unstructured data and using that analysis to optimize cloud data usage and spending. Much of this functionality is included in the full Intelligent Data Management platform. Now Komprise offers this as an affordable stand-alone solution. 

Managing any resource begins with understanding how it’s used. Komprise Analysis can look at all an enterprise’s file and object storage, independent of the underlying storage technology, to quickly generate a unified view of how that data is being used, how fast it’s growing, access patterns, and even who is using that data. Moreover, the tool does this non-intrusively, without impacting storage performance, across nearly unlimited petabytes.  

This analysis yields actionable insights. Komprise Analysis offers a glimpse into the health of the storage infrastructure, identifying file system and network bottlenecks. The tool also enables greater control of compliance, governance, and security functions. It uses its analysis to help the storage administrator address data retention, segregation, and reporting needed for compliance and security use cases. 

What I like most about the new Komprise Analysis offering is how it helps IT organizations control storage costs. The tool allows you to model the financial impact of different data management policies and cost models to help IT administrators make the right decisions about their data. 

Analysis

It’s only possible to effectively manage petabytes of unstructured data with appropriate tools. Vendor-specific solutions exist but can be limited in scope. In an age where nearly every enterprise has data spread across on-prem storage, cloud and, increasingly, the edge, you need a solution that understands that entire spectrum. Komprise delivers that, and the market is responding. 

In January, Komprise announced it had taken in $37M in series D funding, bringing the total investment in the company to $85M. Investment follows momentum, which Komprise is delivering. Komprise reported that it grew 306% from 2018 to 2021, with 30% of its business in 2022 coming from new customers. In addition, it’s Net Dollar Retention for the year was an impressive 120%. 

There are lots of solutions on the market to help manage unstructured data. I like what Komprise is delivering, and I like that the company is singularly focused on solving the challenges of unstructured data. As cloud usage grows, cost control and data protection become top-tier concerns. The new Komprise Analysis offering allows you to address those concerns quickly and without buying into the entire suite. The value proposition is compelling.