OuterBay Technologies

About OuterBay Technologies

OuterBay Technologies, established in 1997, operated in the systems and information management sector, providing Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) for enterprise applications and databases. The company was steered by Michael Howard, a seasoned technology executive who served as Chairman, President, and CEO. His career, marked by leadership roles at companies like Ingrian Networks, Veritas Software, and later MariaDB and Protegrity, demonstrates a consistent focus on database technology, security, and enterprise software. This background was directly applicable to OuterBay's mission of managing complex data environments.

The company's core offering was the Application Data Management suite. This product was engineered to address the challenges of relentless data growth in large-scale business applications. It provided solutions for data archiving, database subsetting, and data growth monitoring. The primary benefit for clients was the ability to systematically move less critical data from high-performance, expensive storage to more economical storage tiers, a process that could enhance database performance by up to 80%. This strategic data management helped organizations contain costs and ensure long-term data retention for compliance and governance. The business model centered on selling this specialized software to large enterprises. Its target clients were companies utilizing major database and application platforms such as Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and SQLServer.

A significant milestone in the company's trajectory was the acquisition of the UK-based data management provider BITbyBIT International in October 2002. This move was a strategic play to create a more comprehensive Application Data Management solution by combining BITbyBIT's front-end modeling environment with OuterBay's backend runtime engine. The acquisition also expanded OuterBay's global presence, particularly in Europe. The company successfully secured approximately $40 million in venture capital funding across several rounds from investors like Redpoint Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Mayfield. On February 17, 2006, Hewlett-Packard (HP) acquired OuterBay Technologies for an undisclosed sum, integrating the company and its technology into its StorageWorks division to bolster its own ILM portfolio.