{"id":298253,"date":"2010-02-09T14:15:52","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T19:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=97776"},"modified":"2010-02-09T14:15:52","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T19:15:52","slug":"nasuni-targets-primary-storage-in-the-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/298253","title":{"rendered":"Nasuni Targets Primary Storage in the Cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cloud storage startup Nasuni<\/a> entered public beta today, bringing with it a new, but familiar, approach to storing primary data. Instead of competing in the already overpopulated cloud storage-provider market — where offerings generally target backup operations and simple file storage — the Natick, Mass.-based startup sells software that looks and acts like a traditional file system but stores data in cloud offerings from Amazon, Rackspace, Nirvanix and Iron Mountain.<\/p>\n

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For $250 a month plus capacity fees (Nasuni covers data transfer costs), customers can use Nasuni to house their primary data in the providers\u2019 clouds. One-year-old Nasuni, which has so far raised $8 million from Sigma Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners, is betting that putting a familiar face on cloud storage will make it accessible to small and medium-sized business that require robust storage arrays but don’t want to pay the capital expenses required to meet skyrocketing data volumes. In short, it’s doing exactly what the cloud ought to do.<\/p>\n

Nasuni\u2019s feature set includes thin provisioning, snapshots, deduplication and escrowed encryption, where the data is stored with one cloud provider and the encryption key with another. And rather than getting rid of their existing hardware, customers can keep around a few hundred gigabytes to serve as a local cache or database. According to CEO Andres Rodriguez, managing 1.5TB for three years with Nasuni would cost about half as much as doing so with a low-end EqualLogic array, and far less than an EMC CLARiiON system.<\/p>\n

However, Nasuni’s product is available only as a VMware virtual appliance, which could limit its potential customer base. Virtualization still isn’t ubiquitous, and Rodriguez acknowledges that no one will buy VMware just to use Nasuni\u2019s solution. Still, he\u2019s optimistic, hoping for 100 paying customers by the end of 2010 and, via a strong partner program, 30,000 customers by the end of 2013.<\/p>\n