Versant Corporation

Versant Corporation

Company type	Public (until 2012)
Industry	Software, Database management
Founded	1988 (1988) in Menlo Park, California, United States
Founder	Dr. Kee Ong
Defunct	2012 (2012)
Fate	Acquired by Actian Corporation
Successor	Actian Corporation
Headquarters	Redwood City, California , United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Michael Seashols (CEO), Dr. Kee Ong (CTO), David Banks (CEO), Nick Ordon (CEO), Jochen Witte (CEO)
Products	Versant Object Database, Versant JPA, Versant FastObjects, db4o
Owner	Actian Corporation (from 2012)
Parent	Actian Corporation

Versant Corporation was a U.S.-based software firm that specialized in NoSQL database management solutions. Established in 1988 in Menlo Park, California, its main office was located in Redwood City, California. Although its market share remained modest compared to IBM and Oracle by 2005, Versant's object-oriented database system gained recognition during the early 2000s alongside IBM UniData.

History

The company was founded by Dr. Kee Ong, who previously contributed to the open-source Ingres project. Versant utilized research originating from the University of Wisconsin to create commercial databases tailored for the emerging object-oriented programming paradigm. The founding leadership team featured CEO Michael Seashols and CTO Dr. Kee Ong.

In 1990, the company adopted the name “Versant Object Technology,” and in 1993 David Banks took over as CEO. Versant went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1996 under the ticker symbol VSNT, raising $14.9 million through its initial public offering. After moving its headquarters from Menlo Park to Fremont, Nick Ordon replaced Banks as CEO in 1998, coinciding with a rebranding to Versant Corporation.

Throughout the 1990s, Versant concentrated on ensuring cross-platform compatibility and outsourced a significant portion of its research and development maintenance to India to support ongoing operations. In 2004, the acquisition of Poet Software GmbH expanded Versant’s footprint in the European Windows market. Jochen Witte, previously president of Poet Software, was appointed CEO of Versant in 2005. That same year, a reverse stock split at a ratio of one-for-ten was executed.

In December 2008, Versant purchased Servo Software’s database division, which included the open-source embedded database db4o. Initially supporting C, C++, and Smalltalk, Versant extended its support to Java in 1995 and later incorporated C# along with the .NET platform by 2009. The introduction of Versant JPA in 2012 brought compliance with the Java Persistence API standard and previewed integration with analytics tools such as Apache Hadoop.

Versant declined an acquisition proposal from UNICOM Systems Inc., but was ultimately acquired by Actian Corporation near the end of 2012 for roughly $37 million. Actian utilized Versant’s technology to enhance its offerings within the big data sector.

Products

The Versant Object Database—currently branded as Actian NoSQL Database—functions as the metadata repository for Avalanche, Actian’s cloud-based data warehouse built upon VectorH, which is a massively parallel processing (MPP) iteration of Vector (formerly Vectorwise).

Alongside the Versant Object Database, the company offered two additional commercial object-oriented database management systems: Versant JPA and Versant FastObjects, as well as the open-source database db4o.

• Versant JPA (now known as NoSQL JPA) is compliant with JPA 2.0 standards and includes an analytics platform compatible with Hadoop. It is available both as a server solution and an SDK for Windows and Linux environments.
• Versant FastObjects (renamed NoSQL FastObjects) provides an object-oriented persistence option for .NET developers seeking non-relational database alternatives.
• db4o was an embeddable open-source object database designed for Java and .NET applications but was discontinued by Actian in 2014.

Feature Comparison

	NoSQL Database	NoSQL JPA	NoSQL Fast Objects
C/C++	Yes	No	Yes
Java	No	Yes	Yes
.NET	No	No	Yes
Enterprise scalability	Yes	Yes	No
Embeddable	No	No	Yes
Minimal administration – no specialized DBA required	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dual client/server caching architecture – improves performance by balancing resources	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multicore scalability – optimizes hardware utilization	Yes	Yes	No
No mapping code required – allows focus on business logic	Yes	Yes	Yes
Online schema evolution – enables application updates without downtime	Yes	Yes	Yes

Additionally, Versant developed "enJin," an infrastructure platform acting as a transaction accelerator by decoupling J2EE applications from underlying data stores. This middleware-level object cache was recommended by IBM to boost performance within IBM WebSphere middleware deployments.