Zaloni
{{short description|American data management software company}}{{Infobox company
| type = Private
| founded = 2007
| founder = Ben Sharma and Bijoy Bora
| hq_location = Durham, North Carolina
| products = Data analytics software
}}
Zaloni is a privately owned, software, and services company headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, United States with offices in Guwahati, Assam,
India and Bangalore, Karnataka, India. provides DataOps software for big data scale-out architectures, such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. They also offer additional add-ons for master data management and professional services.
History
The company was founded in 2007 by Ben Sharma and Bijoy Bora as a data management company.{{cite web|title=Company Overview of Zaloni Inc.| website=Bloomberg News |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/research/sTocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=327561987|access-date=14 September 2016}} After 5 years of working within the industry, Zaloni released its first software product, the Bedrock Data Lake Management platform. In October 2015, the company released Mica, their first self-service data preparation platform.{{cite web|author1=Betsy Amy-Vogt|title=Exclusive: Zaloni launches Mica to automate "data wrangling" process|url=http://siliconangle.com/blog/2015/09/29/exclusive-zaloni-launches-mica-to-automate-data-wrangling-process-bigdatanyc/|access-date=14 September 2016|location=New York, NY|date=29 September 2015}} Mica was listed in the Gartner Market Guide for Self-Service Data Preparation (August 25, 2016), showing very robust capabilities among products from over 36 products in self-service data preparation.{{cite web|title=Zaloni's Mica on the Radar|url=http://jgp.net/2016/08/31/zalonis-mica-on-the-radar/|website=JGP.net|access-date=14 September 2016|date=31 August 2016}} As of March 2020, the Zaloni Data Platform, which had been created from the merging of Mica and Bedrock, has been renamed the Arena software platform.{{cite web|title=Zaloni Data Platform 5.0 Sets New High Bar for Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Data Operations, Management, and Governance|url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zaloni-data-platform-5-0-sets-new-high-bar-for-hybrid-multi-cloud-data-lake-management-and-governance-300671998.html\|website=prnewswire.com|access-date=24 July 2018|date=26 June 2018}}
In August 2022, Truist Financial bought the Arena platform and other assets. Sharma and most other senior management would become part of the Truist Enterprise Data Office. Zaloni would continue to operate from Raleigh, North Carolina, with 20 employees in that location.{{cite news|url=https://journalnow.com/business/local/truist-expands-artificial-intelligence-reach-by-buying-zaloni-platform/article_0d160d34-222b-11ed-be07-a3b29b7100fa.html|title=Truist expands artificial intelligence reach by buying Zaloni platform|last=Craver|first=Richard|work=Winston-Salem Journal|date=22 August 2022}}
In a deal with Infosys on September 1, 2023, Zaloni's Guwahati-based manpower was absorbed by Infosys, while its U.S.-based employees continued with Truist Financial. Following this transition, Zaloni ceased to exist as an independent entity. Subsequently, Infosys established a 230-member dedicated Project Development Centre in Guwahati.{{Cite news |last=Singh |first=Bikash |date=2025-02-21 |title=Infosys launches 230-member dedicated Project Development Centre in Assam, says CM Himanta Biswa Sarma |url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/infosys-launches-230-member-dedicated-project-development-centre-in-assam-says-cm-himanta-biswa-sarma/articleshow/118457711.cms?from=mdr |access-date=2025-02-25 |work=The Economic Times |issn=0013-0389}}
Technology
The Arena software platform is created in such a way that it is storage agnostic. Whether the data is stored on-premises, cloud, multicloud, or hybrid, it can be ingested into the platform to be accessed by governed data users throughout the organization.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
Zaloni's Arena platform is based on a cloud data architecture written by Ben Sharma, called EndZone Governance. This architecture involves four zones that data travels through from ingestion to consumption. These zones are Transient Landing, Raw, Trusted, and Refined. The platform includes a metadata catalog, workflows for data quality, data preparation, and data collaboration,{{Cite web |title=arena overview |url=https://www.zaloni.com/arena-overview/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=Zaloni |language=en}} along with self-service data consumption that delivers data to sandboxes for business tools and applications.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
Funding
On March 7, 2016, Zaloni announced its Series A financing by Sierra Ventures & Baird Capital.{{cite web|author1=David Ranii|title=Durham startup Zaloni raises $7.5 million|url=http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article64579912.html|website=News & Observer|access-date=14 September 2016|location=Durham, NC|language=en|date=7 March 2016}} As part of the transaction, Mark Fernandes, managing director of Sierra Ventures, joined Zaloni's board of directors.{{cite news|title=Funding Snapshot: Data Lake Manager Zaloni Captures $7.5M Series A|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/DJFVW00120160307ec37as180|access-date=21 August 2021|date=7 March 2016}} In 2018, Zaloni received a $1.5 million debt offering{{cite news|author1=Allan Maurer|title=Durham-based data lake management firm Zaloni lands $1.5M in debt offering|url=https://www.wraltechwire.com/2018/05/02/durham-based-data-lake-management-firm-zaloni-lands-1-5m-in-debt-offering/|website=WRALtechwire.com|access-date=21 May 2018|publisher=WRAL Techwire}} and in 2020 received a $6 million credit facility from Epresso Capital.{{Citation
| title =Espresso Capital extends $6 million facility to Zaloni
| publisher =Espresso Capital
| date =October 9, 2020
| url =https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/espresso-capital-extends-6-million-facility-to-zaloni-tm--820120428.html
| access-date =August 21, 2021}} As of 2021, the company had raised $7.5 million.{{cite news|title=Zaloni|url=https://www.vbprofiles.com/companies/zaloni-56ddcb3218f3de09c2000001|access-date=21 August 2021|publisher=VB Profiles}}
Partnerships
On September 8, 2016, NetApp announced a partnership with Zaloni on a mid-tier storage for complete lifecycle management of the data lake.{{cite web|author1=Larry Dignan|title=NetApp launches mid-tier system for data lakes, partners with Zaloni|url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/netapp-launches-mid-tier-system-for-data-lakes-partners-with-zaloni/|website=ZDNet|access-date=14 September 2016|language=en|date=8 September 2016}}
Zaloni is also an Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure approved partner.{{cite web|title=Zaloni and AWS|url=https://aws.amazon.com/partners/find/partnerdetails/?n=Zaloni%2C%20Inc.&id=001E000000UfZOLIA3|access-date=21 May 2018}}