Nexenta Upgrades OpenStorage Software

Nexenta Systems announced the availability of NexentaStor 2.2, the latest version of the company’s enterprise class NAS/SAN solution based on the file system ZFS. The company also introduced an advanced software suite, Pomona, that automates the provisioning and management of multiple NexentaStor and other storage systems.

NexentaStor 2.2 includes additional support for VM storage management making it the only OpenStorage solution on the market that is both VMware and Citrix StorageLink certified. Coupled with Pomona, NexentaStor 2.2 offers a robust commercial solution to handle the most extreme enterprise storage requirements at a fraction of the cost of legacy proprietary offerings. Nexenta unveiled both products at Supercomputing Conference, in Portland, OR with its partner PogoLinux.

NexentaStor is the leading hardware independent storage solution built upon the ZFS file system. NexentaStor runs on industry standard x86 servers and provides NAS and SAN capabilities including support for CIFS, NFS, iSCSI and Fiber Channel storage access. For the first time, customers can experience the benefits of enterprise storage, including high performance and air tight data integrity with multiple replication methods, without the vendor lock-in and aged technologies of legacy storage vendors.

“Nexenta’s proof point is in the 12,000 (and growing) registered users – a remarkable number for a product that has been available for less than two years," said Terri McClure, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. “Perhaps the most important point in Nexenta’s OpenStorage effort is that it gives users the ability to choose the hardware platform they are most comfortable with, rather than purchasing an expensive proprietary product that locks customers into the vendor. Efforts like Nexenta’s are propelling storage into the twenty first century – much like Red Hat and Linux did for the server industry.”

Nexenta’s OpenStorage model allows customers to save 70-80 percent versus proprietary solutions while providing superior functionality and flexibility, and the support of an open source community. With more than 12,000 total users and more than 725 sales, Nexenta’s mission is to make enterprise-class storage available for companies of all sizes.

“The launch of NexentaStor 2.2 and the introduction of Pomona proves that Nexenta is listening to its customers and pinpointing our evolving needs,” said Jefferson Nunn, IT director for GoWireless, Inc. “By investing in innovation and product development, Nexenta continues to cement its leadership position in OpenStorage and makes them an ideal storage partner.”

NexentaStor 2.2 New Features
NexentaStor 2.2 offers new features and improvements for storage users who are grappling with explosive data growth and technological and business model limitations of legacy storage providers.

Specific new features include:

• Additional support for VM storage management – NexentaStor is the only OpenStorage solution on the market today that is both VMware and Citrix StorageLink certified and provides unlimited cloning and replication capabilities. The NexentaStor VM Data Center module provides complete visibility of a virtual server environment and establishes virtual machine storage policies. Unlike legacy systems, NexentaStor has no limitations on the number of virtual machines that can be created via templates or incremental snapshots. For example, a customer using NexentaStor’s VM Data Center or StorageLink from Citrix can easily create any number of identical virtual machines or desktops with just a few clicks and with no incremental storage capacity consumed or impact on the performance of the virtual server host machines.
• NexentaStor 2.2 adds additional virtual machine controls to VM Data Center and supplements the capabilities of the VMware virtual machine available for evaluation at no cost from Nexenta Systems.
• Open virus scanning – NexentaStor 2.2 includes system virus scanning with leading virus definition services. This eliminates the cost of purchasing and managing special purpose servers dedicated solely to virus scanning.
• Open data base integration – NexentaStor’s open, event driven API enables database administrators to easily integrate NexentaStor into their native database environments, where they can leverage its extreme snapshotting performance and flexibility. This capability has been near the top of the list of customer requests since NexentaStor added support for fiber channel earlier in 2009.
• Support for Asian language search – Unlike other ZFS based solutions, NexentaStor includes integrated search capabilities for the easy retrieval of specific file versions for restoration, which now includes the capacity to efficiently index and search Asian language snapshots. NexentaStor ensures that storage administrators can find and retrieve the correct information in order to meet even the strictest mean time to restore SLAs.

Pomona: A breakthrough
in vendor independent storage management
With an increasing number of companies rolling out multiple NexentaStor servers, Nexenta is now offering Pomona, an ideal software suite for managing large installations of NexentaStor systems.

Specific features include:

• Policy-based automation of common storage management workflows across multiple systems – Pomona automates the provisioning and management of multiple NexentaStor or other storage systems. Customers can use NexentaStor with Pomona to automate key steps of their workflow via policies that they establish. These policies can then be invoked through a multi-user, user interface or via REST-based web services APIs.
• Open system approach – Pomona is simple to integrate with existing and new systems due to the use of REST APIs industry standards approach for the control of underlying storage systems including many hardware arrays.

“Nexenta and OpenStorage is accelerating the storage market by offering customers a viable choice to proprietary closed storage software,” said Brad Stone, VP of management software for Nexenta. “With the release of Pomona, enterprises of all sizes have access to equivalent or better functionality to proprietary systems at less than a third of the cost (some of the savings depend on a users hardware choice).”

Availability and Pricing
Both products are available immediately. NexentaStor upgrades including NexentaStor 2.2 are available at no additional cost to NexentaStor users. Pomona will be priced on a per instance managed basis with discounts available for early users.