Panasas, Inc., a leader in scalable network storage for Linux clusters, announced the appointment of Victor M. Perez as president and chief executive officer (CEO). Bringing more than 25 years of operational and storage technology leadership to the position, Perez will build on the exceptional customer base and award-winning technology at Panasas to grow customer adoption, secure strategic partnerships and drive product enhancements.

Perez most recently served as the president and CEO of Chaparral Network Storage Corp., where he implemented a new storage virtualization strategy and international distribution model before the company's successful acquisition by Dot Hill Systems. Prior to joining Chaparral, Perez served as executive vice president and chief operating officer at tape and disk manufacturer StorageTek.

During his 22-year tenure at StorageTek, Perez held various U.S. and international executive positions. He was responsible for establishing StorageTek's first international plant in Puerto Rico and later expanded international manufacturing operations to Europe. In addition, Perez led StorageTek's product development and manufacturing worldwide. As COO, he revived StorageTek's mainframe disk business by establishing a groundbreaking development and distribution partnership with IBM. He also implemented strategic relationships and distribution pacts with Hewlett Packard, Compaq Computer and Sun Microsystems.

"I am excited to be joining the world-class team at Panasas," said Perez. "With its award-winning technology and proven customer results, Panasas is recognized as the rising star in the storage industry. I look forward to broadening our customer base and strategic relationships as we continue to deliver the premier storage solution for Linux clusters."

The Panasas ActiveScale Storage Cluster simplifies Linux cluster computing by combining an object-based distributed file system with smart hardware to dramatically improve performance and manageability in Linux cluster environments. The Panasas Storage Cluster leverages a single, global namespace to eliminate mundane operational tasks and minimize administration cost. The system provides parallel data paths and record-setting aggregate I/O to maximize return from expensive cluster resources. While tailored for Linux cluster environments, the system seamlessly integrates into existing data center infrastructures.

"Victor has deep technical knowledge, a keen awareness of customer needs and proven operational experience in the storage industry," said Jon Feiber, general partner at Mohr, Davidow Ventures and chairman of the board of directors at Panasas. "He will be instrumental in growing our market presence and guiding the company through its next stage of development. We're delighted to have him on the Panasas team."