What is NetApp?

NetApp, Inc is an American multinational storage and data management company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It is a member of the NASDAQ-100, and has ranked in the Fortune 500 since 2012. Founded in 1992 with an IPO in 1995, NetApp offers software, systems and services to manage and store data, including its proprietary Data ONTAP operating system.

It was founded in 1992 by David Hitz, James Lau, and Michael Malcolm. At the time, its major competitor was Auspex Systems. In 1994, NetApp received venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital, NetApp was listed amongst Silicon Valley Top 25 Corporate Philanthropists in 2013.

NetApp's filers initially used NFS and SMB protocols based on standard local area networks (LANs), whereas block storage consolidation required storage area networks (SANs) implemented with the Fibre Channel (FC) protocol. In 2002, in an attempt to increase market share, NetApp added block-storage access as well.

As of 2016 NetApp systems support it via FC protocol, the iSCSI protocol and the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) protocol. NetApp competes in the data-storage devices industry.[15] In 2009, NetApp ranked second in market capitalization in its industry behind EMC Corporation and ahead of Seagate Technology, Western Digital, Brocade, Imation, and Quantum.

In total revenue of 2009, NetApp ranked behind EMC, Seagate, Western Digital, and ahead of Imation, Brocade, Xyratex, and Hutchinson Technology. According to a 2014 IDC report, NetApp ranked second in the network storage industry "Big 5's list", behind EMC (DELL), and ahead of IBM, HP and Hitachi.

In November 2011, during the 2011 Syrian uprising, NetApp was named as one of several companies whose products were being used in the Syrian government crackdown. The equipment was allegedly sold to the Syrians by an authorized NetApp reseller. On April 7, 2014, NetApp was notified by the US Department of Commerce "that it had completed its review of this matter and determined that NetApp had not violated the U.S. export laws", and that the file on the matter had been closed.

In September 2007, NetApp started proceedings against Sun Microsystems, claiming that the ZFS File System developed by Sun infringed its patents. The following month, Sun announced plans to countersue based on alleged misuse by NetApp of Sun's own patented technology. Several of NetApp's patent claims were rejected on the basis of prior art after re-examination by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. On September 9, 2010, NetApp announced an agreement with Oracle Corporation (the new owner of Sun Microsystems) to dismiss the suits.