Nasuni Filer Virtual NAS for Cloud Storage Passed Beta Stage

Nasuni, creator of a gateway to the cloud for primary storage, announced that the Nasuni Filer has passed the beta stage and is available for immediate download.

The Nasuni Filer leverages the resources of the cloud to simplify file access, storage and protection, while eliminating the expense of storage hardware and infrastructure expansion. Because it provisions storage capacity automatically and includes high-performance caching for quick retrieval, it can be used as primary storage instead of or in combination with traditional file servers. It features synchronous snapshots, deduplication, and encryption plus key management for security. Those not ready for a complete transition to all-in-one cloud storage can use the Nasuni Filer for storing second copies offsite for disaster protection. Nasuni’s cloud storage partners include Amazon Web Services, Iron Mountain, Nirvanix and Rackspace.

The Nasuni Filer is being put to the test in many real-world environments. During the 90-day beta period, hundreds of businesses downloaded the software, and have been pushing hundreds of thousands of files to the cloud.

"It’s an excellent product built on a great idea,” said Simon Burns, Head of IT at Shrewsbury House School in the UK. “We are deploying additional storage to our faculty and staff. We did not want to backup all of that additional storage separately. Security and flawless integration to Active Directory were paramount to us during the evaluation period."

“The Nasuni Filer is altogether a new class of storage product,” said Jim Sokoloff, VP of Technology at an Internet Retailer Top-100 firm. “It runs as a virtual NAS appliance in VMware and gives us an on-ramp to some of the major cloud storage providers. In our business we consume massive amounts of storage and are always looking for ways to reduce our costs. Nasuni gives us flexibility by providing a simple way to integrate local, primary storage with the unlimited capacity and cost benefits of the cloud.”

“Our customers are using the Nasuni Filer today to allocate additional storage capacity without having to deploy more hardware. Some customers started their evaluation of the Filer by making second copies of their data to the cloud, but they have been clear with us: This is just the testing phase. Once they feel comfortable with the product, what they really want to use it for is primary storage,” said Nasuni CEO and co-founder Andres Rodriguez. “We’ve made it possible for ordinary business users to take advantage of cloud storage, without a major investment of money, time and talent in building their own gateway. We’re pleased with all the feedback we received from beta testers and are looking forward to the next phase in Nasuni’s growth.”  

The Nasuni Filer requires VMware and can be downloaded (you need to register). Setup and connection is simple and averages less than 15 minutes. After a free trial period of two weeks, customers have the option of month-to-month, one-year or two-year contracts and their choice of cloud vendor(s). Customers receive a single bill from Nasuni with a flat monthly service fee plus storage capacity used.