Cleversafe Inc. was an object storage software and systems developer company.The New York Times: A Move to Secure Data by Scattering the Pieces
/ref> It was founded in 2004 by Chris Gladwin, an American technology entrepreneur. The company was acquired by IBM in 2015, and became an integral part of

IBM Cloud Object Storage IBM Cloud Object Storage is a service offered by IBM for storing and accessing unstructured data. The object storage service can be deployed on-premise, as part of IBM Cloud Platform offerings, or in hybrid form. The offering can store any typ ...

.ChicagoBusiness: Gladwin's $1.3 billion Cleversafe win could change the face of Chicago tech
/ref>

History

Cleversafe Inc was launched as a startup company in 2004 by Chris Gladwin, an American inventor, computer engineer and technology entrepreneur.SB: How Chris Gladwin founded a new storage process with Cleversafe
/ref> Gladwin created Cleversafe because his prior company, MusicNow, Inc., deployed systems to store all digitized music and he felt that approach used by the enterprise data storage products could be vastly improved. Cleversafe had its headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, and was originally based in Illinois Institute of Technology incubator, where the company matured for the first years of its existence.Illinois Tech: Cleversafe, UTP Announce Innovative Open Source Storage Project
/ref> From the beginning, Cleversafe's initial focus as a startup was on developing new dispersed storage technology for unstructured data in the petabyte-plus range, which the company called " Dispersed Storage Network" or dsNet. According to ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and other sources, Cleversafe's approach was to break the data into pieces and then disperses it in multiple locations in order to additionally enhance data security and reliability.Chicago Innovation: Cleversafe
/ref> The initial funding was provided by OCA Ventures. The Cleversafe

Board of Directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

recruited John Morris as its new president and CEO in 2013. Morris successfully increased the value of Cleversafe to the $1.4 billion paid by IBM when it purchased the company two years later in 2015.

Awards

In 2008, Cleversafe was a winner of the Chicago Innovation Awards in the category "Data Backup and Security". In 2011, it was also supported by In-Q-Tel, a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

firm related to the

US intelligence community The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Forbes notes: "In 2013, the company was the 2nd largest

cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is t ...

vendor by volume and received over $100 million in venture funding from NEA, OCA Ventures, Presideo, Motorola Solutions, BVC and Alsop Louis Partners. In 2015, John Morris was named CEO of the Year by the Illinois Technology Association at its 16th annual CityLights Awards for his leadership of Cleversafe.

Technology application

Cleversafe developed and commercialized a method for storing data by

virtualizing In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...

the data using information dispersal

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

s and distributing slices of data across a number (N) of different servers where only a threshold (M) of those servers needed to be available in order for the original data to be fully available. This method allowed a configurable number (M-N) of servers to fail while maintaining complete data availability. With a low overhead of 1 – M/N, information dispersal provided very high data availability and reliability as compared to making multiple copies.InfoWorld Tech Watch:Cleversafe slices up storage to increase big data reliability
/ref> Unlike traditional

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

s that use a tree-like hierarchical structure that can be difficult to scale as the file system grows into the millions or billions of files, Cleversafe provided an object storage system using the REST protocol to store very large amounts of data in a flat system where files are identified by unique object IDs. Cleversafe developed a technology called SecureSlice – a confidentiality feature that virtualizes and encrypts unstructured data, stores the

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

with that data and then breaks up that data, making the slices unrecognizable and inherently secure by placing it on several different storage nodes. The company also develop PerfectBits, a technology to ensure that every bit in a digital object is read exactly as written, even when reading massive amounts of data where the number of bits read is greater than the bit error rate of computer hardware.

Patents

Cleversafe developed a significant patent portfolio for large object storage systems. In 2013, the company was listed on IEEE Spectrum’s Patent Power index. At the time of its acquisition by the IBM, the company had 318 patents granted by the

US Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency in the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark ...

. Jason Resch was the most prolific inventor at Cleversafe and was a named inventor on 139 issued US patents and 315 patent applications in 2015.

Acquisition by IBM

In November 2015, under the guidance of CEO John Morris, Cleversafe was acquired by IBM for $1.4 billion and became an integral part of its IBM Cloud Object Storage division. The acquisition was made to fill a technological gap of the IBM's cloud storage capability, specifically by applying its dispersed object storage technology, which "encrypts unstructured data, stores the key with the data, and then breaks up that data and puts it on several different storage nodes." As ''Network Computing'' stated: "With the acquisition of object storage and erasure coding technologies, IBM bolsters its cloud position."Network Computing: Why IBM Bought Cleversafe
/ref> As a result of the IBM acquisition, Cleversafe’s venture capital investors got back 10 times their original investments. Industry media outlet Built in Chicago pointed out that a “high-profile acquisition of that caliber is a rare feat for Chicago-based tech businesses, with few businesses setting as high a precedent.

References

{{Reflist Computer storage companies IBM acquisitions 2015 mergers and acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States Technology companies established in 2004 Electronics companies of the United States 2004 establishments in Illinois