SoftNAS Object Filer, Software-Defined Files-as-a-Service NAS

SoftNAS, LLC announced availability of Object Filer, an files-as-a-service NAS that integrates with any object storage.

Users benefit from the combination of Object Filer and object storage functionality – the most storage capacity for the least cost, no additional hardware, no application modification, and NAS security, data protection, and performance.

According to Scott Sinclair, Enterprise Strategy Group, “Object technology resolves the challenge of storing and protecting large amounts of unstructured data. Traditional storage arrays, which often leverage RAID technology, hit serious limitations at scale.” ⁽¹⁾

By using software-based Object Filer with object storage, users can easily fully-integrate into existing IT systems, applications and data with new object storage technologies to lower overall storage costs. The company delivers files-as-a-service so object storage fits and performs well with existing applications that are file-based.

“Traditional file systems face interoperability challenges and growing cost burdens because they’re block-based underneath. Although more enterprises are adopting object storage to improve work with new applications involving large data repositories, most application and user data continues to be file-based and require high performance and traditional NAS capabilities to thrive,” said Rick Braddy, CEO and CTO, SoftNAS. “SoftNAS is software-based so it can be deployed immediately to leverage object storage without sacrificing NAS functionality. It’s the best of both worlds.“

Object Filer allows businesses to choose lower cost, scalable object storage, replacing expensive on-premise proprietary SANs or legacy hardware NAS filers, while retaining the rich file services and NAS features IT has come to expect when protecting enterprise data.

Object Filer delivers hybrid cloud storage by leveraging cloud object storage that’s S3-compatible, providing file services capabilities for both on-premise and offsite object storage.

It works in any virtualized environment including vSphere and vCloud Air, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and CenturyLink Cloud.

From within company’s StorageCenter, Object Filer supports any S3-compatible object storage and object storage products including NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, Amazon Web Services, Cleversafe, Caringo, and Cloudian.

SoftNAS Object Filer provides file access via NFS, CIFS/SMB (Server Message Block) with Active Directory, AFP (Apple File Protocol), FTP and iSCSI block services for object storage.

⁽¹⁾ Enterprise Strategy Group, Object Storage Report, Scott Sinclair, June 2015.