Sonian

Sonian, founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneur Greg Arnette, carved a niche for itself as a pioneer in cloud-based information archiving. Arnette, a seasoned expert in messaging and networking with prior successful ventures, identified a critical need among mid-sized organizations for an affordable and scalable email archiving solution to meet burgeoning regulatory and corporate governance requirements. The company was among the first to fully leverage public cloud infrastructure, specifically Amazon Web Services (AWS), to deliver its services, a move that provided significant cost and performance advantages over on-premise alternatives.

Sonian's business model was centered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, generating revenue through subscriptions. It primarily targeted companies with 500 to 5,000 employees, including those in regulated sectors like healthcare, finance, and government, as well as professional services and education. A key part of its go-to-market strategy involved partnerships with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs), for whom the platform offered white-label capabilities and simple API-based deployment.

The core service was a secure, cloud-native email archiving platform designed to preserve, protect, and present electronic communications. This platform automatically captured and indexed all inbound and outbound emails and over 500 types of attachments, making them searchable for legal discovery (eDiscovery), compliance audits, and business continuity purposes. By offloading vast amounts of data to the cloud, Sonian allowed clients to offer their employees seemingly infinite mailboxes without overburdening internal IT infrastructure. In November 2017, after amassing over 32,000 customers, Sonian was acquired by Barracuda Networks, a provider of cloud-enabled security solutions. The acquisition was aimed at deepening Barracuda's capabilities in cloud archiving and email security, particularly for the growing number of businesses migrating to Microsoft Office 365. Sonian's platform was subsequently integrated into Barracuda's product suite and later known as Barracuda Cloud Archive before being discontinued.

Keywords: email archiving, cloud data archiving, SaaS, eDiscovery, regulatory compliance, information governance, data retention, Barracuda Networks, Greg Arnette, cloud storage, AWS, managed service provider, OEM partner, data protection, intellectual property protection, legal discovery, information management, email security, business continuity, data insights