Nasuni Cloud Storage Gateway

Nasuni's CEO, Andres Rodriguez, and I had an in-depth discussion about how mid market companies could save a great deal of money by using cloud based storage. I was somewhat concerned about adding complexity when many of the target companies aren't really prepared to deal with a complex environment. Andres pointed out that was the primary reason that his company's product is delivered as a software appliance.

Here's how Nasuni describes their product

Our software is an elegant, downloadable virtual NAS appliance that runs on a server in your office. Called the Nasuni Filer, it is designed to resemble a traditional NAS, but it has more than traditional talents. Itʼs the Filerʼs job to monitor the cache and direct traffic to the cloud, and itʼs through the Filerʼs simple interface that you select your cloud provider, manage your volumes and performance, and use your file protection tools.

• Trusted third-party clouds provide the storage.
• Capacity is unlimited and adjusts automatically.
• Choose from a selection of clouds.
• Divide files among providers.
• End-to-end encryption secures files on your premises.

With Nasuni, your files will need significantly less management. The Filer integrates your NAS with cloud storage automatically, manages your provisioning automatically, and, as a default, protects your files with snapshotting and the inherent redundancy of the cloud. Still, we give you the controls you need to protect and manage your files exactly as you wish to, in a package that retains the look and usefulness of a traditional NAS.

Snapshot Analysis

Although not right for every task, cloud storage has many attractive features and presents some concerns that must be addressed.

The list of attractive features includes:

• Organizations need only pay for the storage they use.
• Organizations don't need to install storage devices in their own datacenter or offices which will tend to lower power, cooling and floorspace costs.
• The service provider takes care of issues such as maintenance contracts and many categories of operational costs.
• Nasuni's clever caching mechanism offers good performance and easy management of storage resources.
• It is possible to have data and applications stored in several different storage clouds to achieve very high levels of availability.

Some concerns are:

• Security and who can access storage in a multitenet environment such as those offered by all cloud storage supplier
• Performance
• Reliability and availability

Nasuni has gone to great efforts to address the concerns while maximizing the potential benefits. If your organization is investigating how to lower their storage-related costs, Nasuni's approach might be just was you need.