DBM Cloud Systems has pioneered the first data replication platform for the Cloud

Cloud computing has revolutionized IT environments and served as a key accelerator of digital transformation. Companies have strong motivations to move some or all of their data to the cloud and transform their IT organizations. Cloud platforms provide many advantages over traditional legacy data centers including scalability, security, availability, speed to deployment and alignment of costs with actual usage. Customers have choices whether to deploy in public, private or hybrid clouds and the movement and management of the data has become a significant challenge leading to complexity and hidden costs.

DBM Cloud Systems offers Advanced Intelligent Replication Engine (AIRE^™), the most scalable, software-only platform for replicating object data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Dixon Doll Jr, CEO and founder talks to us about the company in detail.

Brief us on DBM Cloud Systems initial days and its growth.

DBM Cloud Systems was founded by industry veterans who have successfully built significant companies in the storage industry and who wanted to impact the global IT shift to Cloud Computing. Our team has deep technical cloud expertise and a successful track record for delivering new technologies that fill a void in the marketplace. We identified a major pain point related to managing the explosion of what is commonly referred to as object data. We focused on building a software platform that was non-invasive, that could scale to manage petabytes of data, is cost optimized for customers and is easy to use. We quickly identified a common theme for IT Departments and set out to solve three distinct problems.

• The financial impact of moving your data into the Cloud

• The technology challenge of managing your object data across multiple clouds

• The regulatory and compliance issues around the management and storage of data

How unique was your initial project? 

We engaged with a global cloud company that had significant challenges around the movement of data and it became apparent that new tools are required to solve how to manage the increasing amounts of data in a multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud. We delivered a new software platform that enables customers to select where their data resides, regardless of location and enables them to automatically replicate and migrate data with the push of a button. DBM Cloud Systems built the only Advanced Intelligent Replication Engine (AIRE) which:

• Reduces risk by automatically replicating objects to multiple targets

• Optimizes performance by automatically scaling resource utilization based on customer needs,

• Reduces cost by selectively migrating or replicating objects to multiple end-points based on user-defined rules

What is your firm’s modus operandi?

DBM believes that there are 4 keys to building a successful company:

• First, is the people and our founding team have all worked together over the last decade to build great new technology products and validate them in the marketplace, there by building standalone companies of significant scale

• Second, enter big markets that have the potential for disruption

• Third, assemble a unique set of experienced investors, partners and advisors who want to help build a world class company

• Fourth is validation of the problem. DBM has partnered with leading Cloud Service Providers including Microsoft, Google, IBM and Oracle to enable their customers to move to their Clouds – either from on-premise or from other Clouds such as AWS. DBM provides Replication-as-a-Service in a managed service model

What according to you comes first, business or employees?

Our employees understand that our priority is to partner with our customers to solve real world problems.  We attract difference makers who can work with limited resources to deliver exceptional results. Each employee is an owner and we hold each other accountable.

A company is where an employee or employer works together for the development of their professional satisfaction. Is it true with your company?

Silicon Valley is the ultimate meritocracy for employees who have multiple job opportunities. Employees are attracted to startups that are innovating and are on the cutting edge as it allows them to demonstrate their skills and make meaningful contributions to success.

For a company’s growth a firm and determined team is essential. How are your employees motivated?

Our management style features transparency and an open exchange of ideas. We hold everyone accountable for their piece of the business and clearly define roles and expectations. People are motivated when they see their hard work pay off in results. Achievement is measured by customer satisfaction and the ability to attract capital to build a cash flow positive business. In addition, as an entrepreneurial company, all employees are shareholders. It is through teamwork that we build a successful company which increases the value of equity owned by employees.

What factors prove to make your organization ‘A great place to work’?

• The opportunity to work in an explosive industry where we have the opportunity to make a significant difference in how enterprises effectively implement a successful cloud strategy

• Everyone has the opportunity and responsibility to work effectively together to build our success in the market

• Being part of a pioneering company that delivers competitive advantage to our partners and customers

What qualities of your company have helped to sustain it in the marketplace?

Most important is to clearly understand our customer’s IT cloud goals and deliver a product that is simple, reliable and cost effective to help them accelerate their cloud strategies. 

How do you support your employees in their work-life balance?

Our employees are competitive difference makers who want to leave a legacy of innovation.  Teams win together and lose together. We measure output, not input and we attract people who understand our mission and complete our product delivery and go-to-market goals.

Where is your position in the marketplace?

DBM has signed strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Google, IBM and Oracle. We recently emerged from stealth mode and DBM was named a 2018 Red Herring Top 100 Winner. Our product is listed on the IBM, Oracle and Google Cloud Marketplaces. DBM customers can now use our product to intelligently move the right data to the right end points for backup, disaster recovery or to access cloud-based applications.

Where do you see DBM in a couple of years?

As a management team, we focus on building great products and teams. The goal is to build a company that is profitable and valued by our customers and partners.

Founder Background

Dixon Doll Jr. has been fortunate to be a part of several successful startup and industry leading companies and has been an executive in charge of raising capital, hiring employees and building global sales teams. He cites that the competitive environment that he learned at Oracle, with a focus on customer traction, as his most formative learning experience. Taking technology from concept, to adoption and to rapid scale is his expertise.

Prior to founding DBM Cloud Systems, Dixon Doll Jr. was COO and a Director at Violin Memory (IPO, 2013) where he led the global field sales team from zero to $100M in revenue in less than 4 years. Violin Memory pioneered the flash array market in 2009 that is now a multi hundreds of billions dollar market segment. Prior to Violin Memory, Dixon was an early investor and SVP of Sales and Corporate Development at Fusion-io (IPO, 2012) building the initial field sales team and the go-to-market strategy. Fusion pioneered the PCI Card market and grew to a multi-billion dollar company that IPO’d in 2011. Previously Dixon was VP at Recourse Technologies which pioneered the Network Intrusion Detection Market (acquired by Symantec), VP at publicly-traded NEON (acquired by Sybase) and founder of Longstreet Ventures, a consulting and advisory firm to the venture community. Dixon began his career at Oracle where he spent four years in the US Alliances organization. Dixon holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

“We ensure customer data is in the right place and never in the wrong place. ”

“AIRE is listed in the Google, Oracle and IBM Cloud Marketplaces.  AIRE is currently the highest rated product in the Oracle Cloud Marketplace.”