Startup Web Office Unveils Long-Distance SAN Appliance

Web Office

The company, a self-funded startup founded two and a half years ago, is looking to the channel to kick-start sales, said Luan Nguyen, president and co-founder.

"The channel has established relationships with customers and has a sales infrastructure in place," Nguyen said. "We don't want to reinvent the wheel."

Web Office's VPSN 2000 series of appliances come in two basic types. The VPSN 2000 ISERVer automates system and network management and sets up data for secure routing and file transfer. It sits on the customer's primary network. The ISERVer is connected to one or more VPSN 2000 ILANd appliances that sit at remote sites to allow secure tunneling and file transfer, Nguyen said.

Unlike NAS appliances, which allow files to be shared locally within the same building, the VPSN 2000 appliances allow them to be shared over long distances, Nguyen said.

"This solves the problem of ever-expanding corporate intelligence," he said. "SMBs and enterprises can't always have IT staff at remote offices."

The ISERVers include models for five, 10 and 20 distributed locations, with prices starting at $2,699. The ILANds differ in total storage capacity and memory configuration and start at $1,798.

Web Office currently bundles the hardware with the software, but the company is primarily a software developer and plans to offer the software portion to OEMs looking to build their own appliances, Nguyen said.