NFS Module Added to Likewise CIFS platform

Likewise Storage Services from Likewise Software is a new offering that adds an NFS (network file system) module to the Likewise CIFS platform – already licensed by firms like EMC-Data Domain, HP, Isilon, and other large storage companies.

Likewise Storage Services offers a security model for file-based access across Linux, Unix and Windows. Likewise Storage Services delivers cross-platform, integrated storage across physical, virtual, and cloud environments – providing both access to and control of a company’s intellectual assets, from Windows, Unix, and Linux systems, with integrated identity and access management.

"We’re leveraging our leadership in interoperability for identity and access management to address these challenges," said Ken Cheney, vice president of marketing and business development, Likewise Software. "Likewise Storage Services provides our OEM partners key enabling technology for secure access to data that is in the cloud or in virtual and physical environments, while also addressing the need for cross-platform support on Linux of the CIFS/SMB and NFS protocols for simple-to-manage, low-cost, NAS-enabled storage."

"A consistent security model across CIFS and NFS file services continues to be a major challenge for many customers," said Henry Baltazar, Senior Analyst, Storage and Systems, for The 451 Group. "With the recent addition of NFS support and integrated identity and access management, the Likewise Storage Services platform has the potential to help customers satisfy their growing security and governance needs."

About Likewise Storage Services
Likewise Storage Services provides client-side and server-side CIFS with SMB and SMB2 support as well as NFS v3 support so Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Unix clients can access folders and files over a network. The Likewise Storage Services FUSE module lets you mount remote Windows shares on a Linux computer to access folders and files. You can remotely manage Likewise Storage Services File Server on Linux and Unix machines by using Microsoft Windows tools. The Likewise Storage Services File Server can be integrated with your own proprietary technology.

Technical features include:

Multi-threaded, modular, user-space architecture.
Multi-tenant support for authenticating users in disparate Microsoft Active Directory domains.
Modern implementation of SMB, SMB2, and NFS v3 remote file protocols, with future support for NFS v4.x.
Support for the full breadth of Windows access control list rights.
Access semantics across different network protocol clients.
Remote management capabilities from Windows applications.
Support for RPC compatibility with Windows applications including commonly used network transports such as TCP/IP and dynamically loadable named pipes.

Licensing
The Likewise Storage Services is available under a commercial license from Likewise Software. The modular code base includes multiple levels of publicly accessible APIs to provide the foundation for Windows-Linux interoperability in a variety of IT products.

Likewise Storage Services is available to OEM partners from the technology licensing team at Likewise.