AutoVirt

About AutoVirt

AutoVirt, founded in 2006 by Klavs Landberg, operated in the data management and storage solutions market, focusing on file virtualization, tiering, and migration. The company was based in Nashua, New Hampshire. Landberg, who served as Founder and CTO, brought considerable experience from previous roles, including Acting VP of Software at Acopia, Director in the Network Storage Division at Sun Microsystems, and Director of Systems Engineering at Data General - CLARiiON.

The company's core business was providing software-only solutions for mid-market organizations to manage unstructured data. AutoVirt's platform was designed to facilitate data migration, file server consolidation, and centralized management for network-attached storage (NAS) and cloud environments. Its business model centered on selling perpetual software licenses, with a significant focus on an all-channel sales model in its later years. The software allowed IT departments to classify data and automate its movement to appropriate storage tiers based on factors like performance, cost, and frequency of access, which helped optimize storage costs. A key feature was the ability to insert a global namespace into a storage environment, which virtualized the file server setup and simplified the process of moving files without disrupting user access.

The product, AutoVirt 3.0 and later versions, offered file-level replication, storage tiering, and archiving capabilities. It was distinguished from competitors by being a software-only, out-of-band solution, which aimed to reduce complexity and cost compared to in-band appliances. The platform also included features to scan and categorize file data by various criteria, such as owner or last access date, to aid in management and migration projects. Despite some success, including being named a Red Herring Top 100 North America Award winner in 2010, AutoVirt faced challenges. The company ceased operations in late 2011 or early 2012 after failing to secure a necessary round of funding. At the time of its closure, the company had approximately 30 employees.