Storage giant NetApp has gained share in the network storage market, according to the latest figures from market watcher IDC.
The IDC survey of the first quarter of 2008 showed NetApp moving up from fourth place in the network storage market to joint-second place with HP. Its share of the market was 12 per cent, up from 10.1 per cent in Q4 2007.

John Rollason, NetApp product marketing manager EMEA, said: “Jumping to second position is good news and quite a leap.”

Rollason said the trends supporting NetApp’s growth included more customers shifting from monolithic to modular storage, the emergence of Ethernet storage, and the adoption of virtualisation with NetApp backup.

The IDC report revealed that NetApp grew in the fibre channel storage area network (SAN) market in both turnover and capacity shipped, while the market itself and market leader EMC both declined.

NetApp remained in pole position in the NAS and iSCSI storage markets in Q1 2008 in capacity shipped, with 40 per cent for NAS and 24.6 per cent for iSCSI.

According to IDC’s figures, NetApp also grew in the storage software market.
NetApp maintained its number two position in the storage replication software market where it continued to close the gap on EMC.

“NetApp is growing at a good rate, so there is no need to change its strategy at the moment,” Rollason said.
NetApp recently launched an array of products to improve performance and scalability for end-users. Rollason said the products were a refresh of the company’s mid-range platform.

The FAS3100 and V3100 storage system series are targeted at the availability of critical business operations and technical applications.

Clive Longbottom, IT service director at analyst Quocirca, said: “NetApp has been bubbling under as a big vendor for a while. A lot of marketing has given it presence as a cheaper alternative to EMC.”
The vendor has also launched its Storage Acceleration Appliance and an add-on cache called the Performance Acceleration Module.