One of the first working days of the New Year started with a very nice phone call and a somewhat unusual question: a young future dual marketing student, Lucie Preikschat, wanted to know why the brands in our Storage Family carry the names of mystical creatures. She was tasked with a brand research exercise for her university application. Lucie is looking forward to her dual education which combines a university degree with an apprenticeship in a Cologne based marketing agency. She really dug into the details for optimal results of her research and we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that her dream will come true!
Personally, I had a lot of fun giving her a lot of background information and later asked Lucie to share her findings in the form of this guest post on our blog. After all, our partners and customers may have asked themselves why their RNT storage system or software-defined storage solution is called BigFoot, or Sasquatch. Here are the answers from Lucie Preikschat, future marketing student.
How it all began
What did I first think of when I came across the term ‘BigFoot’ while doing brand research for my university application? First, I thought of the mystical creatures or monsters that are said to be seen in forests or mountains far away from human civilisation. Then I thought of the German TV commercial for paper towels and, of course, bigfoot bae. I certainly did not associate BigFoot with storage systems, because I came across either fantasy names or alphanumeric product descriptions. This made me curious so I called and talked to Patricia Hillebrand, International Channel Manager at RNT.
Why does the RNT Storage family comprise of the brand names BigFoot, Sasquatch, Yowie and Hibagon?
To answer this question, we have to look back to the year 2011. To fulfill a customer request for a big and fat storage system, RNT CEO Sebastian Noelting was working on a new design providing the highest density per height unit (U). Word of the ‘big’ news spread quickly and within a fairly short time, RNT received more customer enquiries and orders for this storage system. Now, of course, it needed a name.
But how does a mystical mythical creature make it from Northern America to the German Black Forest? One morning back in 2011 Sebastian Nölting went for a walk with his dog. In the forest, they discovered traces of several large footprints! Does Bigfoot really exist in Baden-Württemberg? According to a newspaper article, it had allegedly been sighted in Bavaria before. The idea was born because just like the large and powerful storage system, this monster is known for being strong and robust. That’s why RNT’s biggest storage system was named BigFoot XXL.
What about Sasquatch?
Over the following years, it got more and more difficult for conventional storage systems to meet customer requirements in terms of flexibility and cost efficiency. Software-Defined-Storage (SDS) solutions were on the rise and RNT began to combine its BigFoot XXL storage system with software products from leading ISVs. In 2016 it became obvious that the product family had to grow and since BigFoot was already very well received by partners and customers, RNT continued to rely on the tradition of Bigfoot-like mystical creatures in the naming of its Storage Family. Thus, these optimal SDS solutions without compromise were given the name of the Canadian Bigfoot: Sasquatch.
The reason for this is quite simple because the mystical creatures of North American folklore are said to roam mainly in the mountains of the USA and Canada. What the Americans call Bigfoot is called Sasquatch by the Canadian natives, which translates as ‘hairy giant’.
Where does Yowie come from?
There have also been sightings in Australia of a huge and hairy, human-like creature that has a face like a monkey. This creature is said to be over two metres tall and walking on two legs with huge feet. The Aborigines call this creature Yowie, which means “hairy man”. The Kuku Yalanji tribe from Queensland even say that they have stored every single encounter with the mysterious creature in their collective tribal memory.
In 2020, RNT recognised the demand for compact, enterprise-class storage solutions for businesses handling smaller data volumes and developed a unique, out-of-the-box, turnkey storage appliance with 5 nodes in 3U. This appliance was built to securely store critical business data and to be ready to use in less than 30 minutes. And because 5 nodes fit the 5th continent, the RNT appliance portfolio was named Yowie.
Konichiwa Hibagon!
In July 1970, a man near Saijo in the Japanese Hiroshima prefecture came across something that looked like a large ape-like creature. When the news got spread more people reported views of a monster that was about 1.60m tall, had dark brown to reddish fur, a large nose, white hands, and large white feet.
Some amateur researchers believe that Hibagon is a descendant of the Gigantopithecus, which is thought to be extinct globally. The largest ape of all time actually lived on all continents – more than 100,000 years ago. What if some specimens still live undiscovered in the Japanese wild and have even survived the atomic bombing of 1945?
Either way, it looks like Hibagon can withstand a wide variety of environmental factors, whether it’s cold or warm, rainy or dry. This is one of the reasons why the latest member of the RNT Storage family got its name in 2021: Hibagon Mobile Data Safe. With this robust and armoured data safe, data can be migrated or transported from A to B safely and efficiently.
What’s the link between bigfoot_bae and RNT’s monstrous storage family?
The last sighting of a mythical creature in the real world was documented in the last century so we neither saw nor heard anything of Bigfoot and his other monster friends for a long time. It was only last summer when Bigfoot suddenly stalked out of the depths of the internet! A TikTok video that went viral provided the perfect stage.
Using the nickname bigfoot_bae, a person in a Bigfoot full-body costume strolls through forests or performs the latest TikTok trends. The most famous video by bigfoot_bae appeared in June 2021 and was viewed over 12 million times, liked 2 million times, and commented on over 23 thousand times within 6 months.
bigfoot_bae’s real identity is still kept secret. To stick with the same context, there’s still controversy about whether Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yowie, and Hibagon ever existed. The mystery surrounding these creatures fascinated us back then and continues to do so today. In the past, fascinating monster stories got shared around the campfire. Today, they go viral via a TikTok video or Instagram story.
In order for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and others to be always on and functioning without latencies, they need a large amount of storage!