The Top 25 Innovators Of 2013

CTO, Chief Architect, Server Storage Software Group, EMC


When EMC acquired storage startup ScaleIO in July, EMC partners told CRN the deal was nothing less than huge. That's because, in addition to the potentially massive implications that ScaleIO's Elastic Converged Storage could have on the way EMC partners sell both storage and the cloud, the technology could emerge as the key driver of EMC's burgeoning software-defined storage strategy.

Thank ScaleIO's founder and former CTO Erez Webman, one of the masterminds behind the technology. According to ScaleIO, Elastic Converged Storage eliminates the need for a SAN by tying together the storage capacity of multiple servers. It works by building a scalable file system from thousands of existing and newly purchased servers, allowing for a scalable storage architecture without needing specialized storage administrators or adding to the workload of existing server admins. ScaleIO now operates within EMC's Emerging Technologies Product Division.