Astute Networks Adds Former LeftHand Sales Veteran Steve Kucker as Vice President of Sales

Astute NetworksTM, Inc., the leading provider of high-performance virtual machine storage appliances, today announced that it has added storage industry veteran Steve Kucker as Vice President of Sales to lead Astute’s sales and channel initiatives as the company accelerates its global footprint to capitalize on the multi-billion flash market. His appointment follows the company’s recent appointment of Senior Vice President of Marketing, Len Rosenthal, and the completion of its $12 million Series B funding.

Astute Networks’ patented DataPump EngineTM and Networked Performance Flash™ (NPF) architecture found in its ViSX appliances were designed from day one to deliver tightly fused, high-performance, low power solutions that significantly accelerate Virtual Machine (VM) and application performance. Together, these patented advances  help companies overcome key virtualization challenges of limited VM counts per physical server, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) boot storms, and constrained deployments of virtualized business-critical applications due to lack of confidence in predictable sustained performance.

ViSX operates with all major virtualization platforms including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and Red Hat RHEV. By complementing existing SAN or NAS infrastructures, with seamlessly additive highly optimized flash-based datastores, ViSX satisfies the performance requirements demanded by today’s business-critical applications. The ViSX Networked Flash-based appliances cost-effectively deliver up to 100,000 sustained random IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second), that is shareable by all virtual machines on all hosts over standard 10G or 1G Ethernet networks - all in an affordable, small footprint, multi-terabyte, and easy-to-deploy rack mount device.

The addition of Steve Kucker to Astute’s management team is a direct response to the dramatic growth the company has seen as it delivers game changing high-performance VM storage appliances that break the performance, complexity, and cost barriers for virtual server and VDI environments. Steve will oversee the company’s expanding sales, pre and post-sales support, and service teams.

“We continue to see deepening demand and growing traction as customers embrace the benefits and value of ViSX to overcome the performance and ease of use barriers plaguing virtualized environments,” said Steve Topper, CEO, Astute Networks. “Steve brings a strong track record in building and scaling highly effective sales organizations for some of the industry’s largest storage players. We are delighted to have him join our management team as we extend our reach and drive continued momentum throughout 2012 and beyond.”

Steve Kucker comes to Astute from industry leading VMware (NYSE: VMW), EMC (NYSE: EMC), and Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) partner AdvizeX, where he was responsible for a large, revenue doubling business unit P&L. Prior to AdvizeX, he was regional director for LeftHand Networks, which was acquired by HP.  At LeftHand, he spearheaded a channel sales model which helped to drive the company’s business from $250,000 to a run rate of $80 million. He has also held key sales positions with EMC and MTI Technology, and holds degrees from the University of Lowell and Wentworth Institute. He is also a veteran of the United States Navy.

“In my many years working in the storage industry, I can’t think of a technology opportunity more properly aligned with a market need as what we are delivering here at Astute Networks to our channel partners and, ultimately, end customers,” said Steve Kucker, Vice President of Sales, Astute Networks. “With virtualization becoming the foundation of nearly every enterprise data center, ViSX high-performance VM storage appliances are helping enterprises finally realize the full potential of their virtualization investments.  I’m pleased to join the Astute team and look forward to expanding our market presence and position as the market leader for virtualization-optimized storage appliances.”

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About Astute Networks

Astute Networks is the leading provider of high-performance virtual machine storage appliances.  The company’s ViSXTM family of Networked Flash™ appliances, powered by its patented DataPump Engine™, overcome virtualization performance limitations by non-disruptively delivering shared performance to all virtual machines, across all hosts, over pervasively deployed Ethernet networks. With ViSX, IT organizations have the power to confidently virtualize and deploy business-critical applications while eliminating costly over-provisioning of IT infrastructure. ViSX is available through the company’s network of authorized channel partners. For more information, visit www.astutenetworks.com.

Astute Networks, Networked Performance flash, ViSX G3, DataPump Engine, and FlashWRX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Astute Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Contact:
Sabrina Sanchez
The Ventana Group for Astute Networks
Chantilly, VA
(925) 785-3014