Komprise has expanded the Dell EMC solutions they work with reacting to customer requests they support their mid-market line – which could wind up being rebranded.

Campbell CA-based startup Komprise, which previously supported Dell EMC’s scale-out Isilon and Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) object storage platforms, has announced that they now support the Dell EMC Unity platform as well.

Komprise, which makes an analytics-driven data management solution, was created in 2013 and has developed an open standards-based offering designed to be extremely simple, which learns from the customer’s environment, and is both highly scalable and affordable. The founders are now on their third company, following Kovair, which makes a DropBox-like SaaS solution for application lifecycle management, and Kaviza, a small business-focused ‘VDI-in-a-box’ solution which Citrix ultimately purchased and then ran into the ground.

“Komprise provides deep analytics for customers,” said Krishna Subramanian, Komprise’s President, COO, and one of the three founders. “So many customers don’t know what’s in their storage, and they wind up making many decisions in the dark. Our deep analytics lets them ask questions and get answers.” Komprise also manages, transparently moves, and archives the data.

Komprise’s solution is designed to be complementary to other products on the market, and as a result, their go-to-market strategy is based on a broad range of partnerships with storage vendors and cloud providers.

“Our two biggest partners are the dominant players in networked storage, Dell EMC and NetApp,” Subramanian said. “We have many partners though, including specialized ones like SpectraLogic, which mainly makes tape storage.”

Komprise goes to market entirely through channel partners, and while it is very much a value channel rather than a volume one, they are continuing to expand their reseller network. They are also continuing to add to their customer base, with their Canadian customers including a large hospital, and a significant  gaming company.

EMC’s Unity storage systems, announced a year ago at the last EMC World before the acquisition by Dell became final, are a mid-market offering. A rebranding and upgrading of their previous VNXe line, it is aimed lower in the market than the previous EMC solutions that Komprise supports. Subramanian said that shift in focus has nothing at all to do with any change in market approach by Komprise, but simply reflects requests from their customer base.

“Many of our customers who we have been working with on Dell EMC Isilon and ECS have been asking us for support for Unity as well,” Subramanian said. “It is common for even large financial institutions to have a mix of Isilon and VNXe/Unity. Because we are open standards based, can work across all platforms, and don’t have to put agents on the storage, we can react to this type of request.”

While Komprise announced its support for Dell EMC Unity, it may wind up supporting VNXe after all. Nexsan, a much smaller storage company, also launched an upgraded product line last year with the Unity brand, and the two companies wound up in court, duking it out over the rights to the trademark. Three weeks ago, Nexsan won a Federal Court ruling that they had priority rights. Nexsan then released the next generation of their Unity product yesterday – during Dell EMC World – which was likely not coincidental!

Dell EMC has not formally responded to the decision, or indicated whether they will rebrand their Unity line. Komprise will support it regardless of the branding it ultimately assumes.