This article is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view. For blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become encyclopedic, use {{db-spam}} to mark for speedy deletion. (February 2009)

3PAR Inc.

Type	Public (NYSE: PAR)
Founded	1999
Founder(s)	Jeffrey Price Ashok Singhal Robert Rogers
Headquarters	Fremont, CA, USA
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	David C. Scott (President), (CEO) & (Director)
Industry	Information storage (hardware and software)
Products	InServ, InForm, Thin Provisioning, Dynamic Optimization, Virtual Domains, Virtual Copy, Full Copy, Remote Copy, Recovery Manager for Oracle, Recovery Manager for MS SQL Server, Recovery Manager for MS Exchange, System Tuner, System Reporter, Multipath I/O for IBM AIX, Multipath I/O for MS Windows, Access Guard
Revenue	US$ 184.72 million (FY09)
Operating income	US$ -2.02 million (FY09)
Net income	US$ -0.96 million (FY09)
Total assets	US$ 192.82 million (FY09)
Employees	591 (FY09)
Website	3PAR.com

3PAR Inc. (NYSE: PAR) is an American manufacturer of systems and software for data storage and information management. It is headquartered in Fremont, California, USA. 3PAR produces a range of enterprise storage products, including hardware disk arrays and storage management software. Its company slogan is "Resilient Infrastructure Agility For Less."

3PAR led the development of what has been called a new category of disk arrays, "Utility Storage"^[1], that are designed to be the storage foundation for utility computing architectures. Virtualized utility computing architectures provide the platform on which service providers can deliver enterprise IT as a utility service. The emergence of Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and social networking business models deployed via the internet and cloud computing are examples of this trend. Enterprises and government organizations that are turning their IT organizations into internal service bureaus by building shared virtualized infrastructures for flexible workload consolidation are another.

3PAR’s flagship SAN product, the InServ storage server, is a component of the enterprise storage in many data centers^[2]. It includes the models T400 and T800 which compete with high end monolithic storage arrays like the EMC DMX and HDS USP, and the models F200 and F400 which compete with modular storage arrays like the EMC CX and HP EVA. The same InForm operating system software suite runs across both the F- and T-class platforms.

[edit] History

3PAR began in 1999. The founders included Jeffrey Price and Ashok Singhal, the P and A in the company's name. The R stands for a third partner, Robert Rogers, who left the company in 2001. David Scott became President and CEO in January 2001. The company’s stated mission was "to make storage solutions simple and efficient".

3PAR first shipped the InServ storage server in September 2002. 3PAR’s primary competitors in the enterprise storage market are EMC Corporation, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. 3PAR has been called a "pioneer and champion" ^[3][4] for thin provisioning^[5], a mechanism to improve the utilization efficiency of storage capacity deployment. 3PAR first announced this capability in June 2002 and shipped it to customers in 2003.

In September 2007 3PAR opened a second Research and Development office in Belfast, Northern Ireland^[6]. The company completed an initial public offering in November 2007^[7] and was initially listed on the NYSE arca. In the same month, 3PAR introduced Virtual Domains^[8], which allow for secure application data isolation on a consolidated storage platform. In December 2008, 3PAR moved to the NYSE Big Board.

3PAR supplies its customers through a direct sales force in the US, the UK, Germany and Canada. It also supplies its InServ platform through storage systems integrators and channel partners in other countries around the world including Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, India, Australia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and South Africa.

[edit] External links

• 3PAR Inc. Website

[edit] References