FAQs

Does the Nasuni Service hold my files?

Yes and your working data set of files also remain on-site in local storage. All version history of your files and redundant copies are stored as part of the Service offsite for data protection and access to remote offices. Our storage controller, Nasuni Filer, encrypts your files before they leave the perimeter of your data center, so no one at Nasuni or the cloud can see your files. Any data stored in the service is only available to you – in other words, past versions, replicated data sets, remain only in your control – Nasuni and the cloud cannot access your files.

How do I know my data can be accessed only by me?

Data is encrypted by the storage controller on your premises, using OpenPGP with AES-256, and remains encrypted in the cloud. This guarantees end-to-end data protection. The data is never visible to anyone at Nasuni or the cloud. Customers can choose to escrow their encryption keys with Nasuni or a trusted third party, or to generate and store their own keys.

Should I escrow my keys with Nasuni or store them myself?

As a provider of storage services, Nasuni offers a key escrow service to all of our customers. However, we encourage our customers to generate and store their own encryption keys. Best practices include keeping a copy of your keys in multiple locations and creating different keys for each volume.

Will Nasuni save me money?

Yes. The total cost of the Nasuni, is considerably less than a comparable investment in protected storage. With Nasuni, you can expand your existing storage capacity without purchasing additional hardware. As part of our Data Continuity Service, Nasuni automatically protects your files with snapshots, in conjunction with the redundant architecture of the cloud, so there is no need for backup or remote storage, which represents a considerable savings. Your IT staff will also become more productive, since they won’t have to provision more storage or perform regular backups. With Nasuni, everything is included.

Can I save all my data with Nasuni?

Because Nasuni uses caching for local provisioning, the system is perfectly suited to files. Databases and email servers, like Exchange, are not good candidates for this solution. Nasuni will create more capacity in your existing storage system by eliminating the need to store many of your files locally; in the majority of cases, you should continue to use your local storage to host email and databases.

How is Nasuni better for me than provisioning directly from a cloud provider?

Nasuni offers a local storage controller managed by advanced software. While the cloud plays an important role in how this local storage controller functions, it is only a part of the complete system.

Can Nasuni be used with my private cloud?

No. Over the last few years, Nasuni has tested and evaluated a multitude of providers and have chosen the best providers – those with the highest reliability and performance – to work with. We select specific providers optimized for storage so that our customers receive the best storage experience.

How does Nasuni assess its cloud providers?

We continuously monitor our partners for availability, performance and data integrity. Tests are run from multiple locations in order to eliminate possible locality issues. The system reports any outages to our engineers almost instantaneously, and our solid relationships with our providers allow us to resolve any issues quickly. We are so confident in the Nasuni storage controller and the uptime statistics of our carefully selected back-end cloud storage providers, we back our services by a 100% uptime guarantee SLA.

Why don’t you have your own data centers?

By design, Nasuni chooses the best of breed elements as part of our Data Continuity Service. The existing large cloud service providers enjoy massive economies of scale for efficiency, fine-tuned operations for reliable hardware replacement and software rollout, and centralization for control. Nasuni’s technology excels at data access, security, user access, and simplification of storage. The Nasuni Data Continuity Service unifies both of these and layers them with a strong SLA with guarantees.

Does Nasuni Filer deduplicate files before sending them to the cloud?

Yes. Compared to traditional storage methods where customers pay for snapshots and storage in the cloud, copies and changes are stored with Nasuni at no cost. We do invoke sub-file level de-duplication between versions of the same file and across each customer's distributed namespace for that volume. The benefit to end customers is accelerated performance in accessing files from any location. We minimize network congestion and thus optimize performance.

Will Nasuni consume all my bandwidth? Can I throttle its bandwidth usage?

You can throttle its bandwidth, and you will likely want to, so it comes with throttling enabled. The Nasuni Filer is optimized to push your data to the cloud as quickly as possible. Its transfer protocol tries to use all of your available network capacity. While this behavior produces the best transfer speeds, it may inconvenience users who need the network to function for other purposes. Throttling allows you to set a limit on the amount of bandwidth the Nasuni Filer can use at certain times of the day. You can change the settings once you have logged in as the administrator.

What happens if the appliance is damaged or lost?

All you need to do to restore your storage controller is log in to your account on the nasuni.com website, download a new image of the Nasuni Filer, and reinitiate the setup. Nasuni’s setup wizard will ask if you are recovering a previous Filer configured and will lead you through a simple restore procedure. You’ll need to upload your encryption keys, and that’s it. The Filer will then download the metadata necessary to bring all file systems online, and the system will be operable within minutes—not in hours or days like traditional backup.

What happens when I need to migrate to a new server?

Your virtualization platform provides simple movement tools for migrating virtual machines to new physical servers. Because the Nasuni Filer is a virtual machine, you can use these movement tools to migrate the Filer. Further simplifying matters, the size of the Filer is only the size of its cache and not the size of the complete file set, so finding available space in a new physical server is easier.

Does the hardware appliance perform better than the virtual appliance?

Virtual environments can be configured in such a way that virtual application performance comes close to that of a hardware appliance. In many cases though, organizations overload their VM environments and thus there are contention issues between the various applications. Hardware is often used for data centers or HQ for heavy-duty requirements. Our hardware is specifically optimized for the Nasuni Data Continuity Service by providing acceleration for UniFS™ and additional local storage.

If files are stored off site, how quickly can users access them?

As fast as any locally stored file, thanks to our high-performance cache. With Nasuni, your working set is all held in your local infrastructure, so access speeds for these files will be unchanged. Speeds for a file not in the cache will depend on your Internet connection and the cloud storage provider. Typically, files begin to download in a few milliseconds and results to users are rendered in seconds. We designed the Nasuni Filer to handle such delays gracefully, so that your applications will not receive errors.

What happens when users make changes to the files in the local cache? Does the cloud track them?

Nasuni tracks them. Any changes users save to files in the local cache are sent to the cloud periodically as snapshots, so the set of files stored remotely is kept up to date. Only the changes are sent—rather than the entire new version of the file—so performance is not affected by the traffic and near duplicates will not proliferate in the cloud. New files are also automatically snapped to the cloud.

Can I increase the size of my local cache?

The size of the cache is adjustable for Nasuni’s virtual appliance. It is limited only by the capacity of your local infrastructure. With Nasuni hardware, the cache size is not adjustable. The cache size though does not dictate how much storage capacity you can use becuase the Nasuni storage controller intelligently leverages the cloud and on-premises storage to optimize the user experience when accessing files at HQ or from branch offices.

What is a cloud volume?

A cloud volume is stored by the service and contains the gold copy of your data, including all versions. Each volume corresponds to a complete file system. You can easily create or delete volumes through the Nasuni Filer's simple control interface. With the Filer, you can access your volumes from one or multiple locations and you can control where different data sets reside. You can also set capacity quotas for each volume. All volumes are encrypted by the Nasuni Filer on your premises, and the encryption keys can be held by your business, Nasuni, or escrowed with a third party.

Will I have as much control over my volumes as I do now?

Yes. Nasuni cloud volumes are to cloud storage what traditional volumes are to disk storage (except that cloud volumes never run out of capacity). As with disk storage, only you, the administrator, will have the authority to manage the volumes. No one at Nasuni or the cloud can access your data, because it is encrypted, and user access is controlled by you, using traditional NAS tools. You can easily create and delete cloud volumes. They are easier to configure than disk volumes, because each one has a default file system already in it, so there is no need for formatting. Volumes have no capacity limits and automatically expand as your data set increases, so you will never have to re-provision. You can, however, set capacity quotas.

How do I access volumes in multiple locations?

You set volume access permissions from the Nasuni Filer that creates the volume. Based on whether you’ve granted a volume, read-only or read/write access rights will dictate how that data is accessed across your organization. Users in your various locations will have immediate access to data stored within those volumes.

What happens if the Internet is down?

The files in the cache remain available; for files not in the cache, you have to wait until your Internet connection is re-established. Users can continue their work and, when the Internet connection is restored, the Filer will resume its snapshots and commit their changes to the service.

For architectural or engineering firms, with giant files only accessed once every few months, what would the access speed be like for users?

We have highly optimized the streaming of large files form our Data Continuity Service. Customers with large files or large working sets should create a generous local cache in order to avoid performance issues. The Nasuni hardware appliance should also be considered as it is optimized for the Nasuni service and is available with up to 6TB of local storage.

Who is responsible if there is a problem?

We are. We are your one-stop shop for all support issues. Nasuni has been instrumented to provide our support staff with plenty of diagnosis data. We will track down any issues and work to correct them. Our technical support staff is here 24/7/365 to help you.

How fast can I get my files to the cloud the first time?

The speed at which files get to the cloud will depend on the available bandwidth of your Internet connection and how much data you initially load. Files being brought into the system land in the local cache and are then sent as a snapshot to the cloud. Nasuni features a native data migration service that can easily move large data sets to the cloud while preserving existing ACLs and permissions. The Nasuni migration service automatically adjusts the ingestion rate to make it simpler and more efficient to move data. Users can choose to migrate from multiple file servers simultaneously by adding them as data sources to the Nasuni Filer. The new data migration service provides administrators with comprehensive audit logs of the migrations available as text files. For customers with large data sets, Nasuni offers a data migration service as a professional service, shortening your time to load and get access to your data. Contact Customer Success for information and pricing for this Nasuni Professional Service. 

Can I replace backup/restore with Nasuni?

For files stored with Nasuni, backup/restore and disaster recovery are included. The cloud by its nature holds redundant copies of your files all the time, and our snapshotting technology allows you to view and restore any past instance of your system, so together they provide backup and restore. In the event of a disaster recovery, Nasuni can restore your data to any location in minutes, so you are totally covered. Nasuni is designed to be an all-in-one file storage and protection system. Nasuni should not be confused with a backup target. You can have your applications write backups to Nasuni but our Service offers a much more comprehensive solution that being a narrow backup target.

How are snapshots better than traditional backup/restore?

Unlike traditional backup, which is notoriously slow, a Nasuni restore is operable instantaneously. While traditional backup is opaque, snapshots are not: They look just like a file system, and you can navigate back in time to view any version of any file. You can restore files separately or as part of a directory or file system. Because snapshots are integrated with Nasuni, they reliably back up everything in the file system without duplications, omissions, or parent-child errors. With Nasuni, there will never be that nerve-racking moment when you try to restore a file system and discover that errors have been quietly accumulating. You will simply initiate a restore, and your file system will come back complete. Finally, snapshots don’t take up room in your data center, and they are unified with your Nasuni storage solution.

Can I set the frequency of my snapshots?

Yes. Both the frequency and the bandwidth consumed by the snapshots can be defined. Snapshots capture the file system at a single point in time and are taken at regular intervals. To see the simple interface for setting snapshot frequency, refer to the Snapshot Configuration section of our User Guide.

Can I limit the number of snapshots stored in the cloud?

Yes. While Nasuni allows unlimited snapshots, you can set up snapshot retention policies for each volume. You can choose to hold only a certain number of snapshots or keep snapshots for a certain duration of time. All old snapshots beyond the specified period will be securely deleted from the cloud. The Nasuni Filer defaults to hold the snapshots indefinitely.

After my data is deleted in the cloud, could someone undelete or access my information?

Each customer determines your unique deletion, and retention, policies for your data stored in the Nasuni services. Once you delete your data, no one will be able to undelete or access your files. The files are encrypted before being sent to the cloud, so no one can access the files before or after they are deleted.

Can Nasuni provide disaster recovery for my files?

Yes. Nasuni’s Service gives you built-in backup and data protection replicating your data offsite. In the event of a disaster, you have a swift recovery system that you can access from any location, provided you have with you your nasuni.com credentials and your encryption keys.

What is the best type of provisioning to use when deploying a virtual instance of Nasuni?

We strongly encourage you to use thick provisioning when deploying Nasuni. There is little benefit to thin provisioning and performance will be greatly reduced.

What is the difference between my Nasuni.com username and password and my Nasuni Admin username and password? Can they be the same?

Two different accounts are used to manage the Nasuni Filer. The Nasuni.com account is used for billing, account maintenance, and to download a fresh copy of the Filer in the event of a disaster. The Nasuni Filer admin is used to manage each instance of the Nasuni Filer. This username and password should be different than the credentials used at Nasuni.com

Is there a way to identify and report on the different types of data being stored in the Nasuni service?

Yes. Nasuni features a built in File Heuristics information center. Navigate to “Status” and select “File Heuristics.” Here, you can see the type and size of data stored in the service.

Does Nasuni offer a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?

Yes. Nasuni's industry-leading Service Level Agreement (SLA) reflects our customer-focused, services-based commitment to you. Our SLA guarantees that our Services will always be:

• 100% Available – You will always be able to store and retrieve your data
• 100% Accessible – You will always have access to your data
• 100% Secure – Only people with your encryption keys and credentials can access your data
• 100% Immutable – Your data cannot be changed
• Fast Disaster Recovery - Restore access with the click of a button

For more details, read the complete SLA.

How many storage controllers (heads) are included with my Nasuni account?

You can have up to three (3) storage controllers (heads). For customers with larger datasets and multiple locations, we offer customized solutions.

How do I purchase storage from Nasuni? Can I buy in per/GB increments?

Nasuni storage services are available in 1TB/year increments. We make it easy to budget your storage needs and accommodate unexpected file growth. Should you need to purchase additional storage, simply call your Nasuni sales representative and they will allocate the additional space to your account(s). There is no need to purchase additional hardware, migrate existing data and cause unnecessary downtime for your users.

Does Nasuni offer a hardware appliance?

Yes. For the data center or enterprise headquarters, we offer a hardware appliance with 6 TB of local capacity, allowing strong on-premises control and support. For remote locations, distributed offices or dynamic field offices like those in consulting or construction, which often lack full IT staff, we offer a lighter version with 3 TB of local capacity. Organizations can use multiple appliances, hardware or virtual, to tailor a storage solution to their particular needs. Prospective customers can evaluate a fully functional virtual appliance at no cost. Once ready to deploy the system in production, customers can choose to remain in the virtual appliance or, without having to migrate data, use one of the new hardware appliances instead.

What is cloud storage?

Cloud storage is an unlimited and reliable data repository built on the principle that data can be fully protected if it is held redundantly, with the copies being distributed widely among a network of servers. Servers can be replaced when necessary with no loss of data, and the system can be expanded infinitely without any service interruption. Cloud data centers are massive, providing an economy of scale and a level of reliability unattainable by traditional storage solutions. Some clouds hold data in multiple geographic locations as well, for protection against a natural disaster. There are private clouds, owned by enterprise companies, and public ones, which have recently become available to everyone. The new public clouds, while fully functional as repositories, do not yet offer many tools for businesses looking to make effective use of them, so many companies are springing up to serve those who are poised to benefit from the cloud but lack the tools to do so. Nasuni provides all the tools you need to integrate cloud storage with the working life of your business.

Why is cloud storage the best choice now?

For many years, enterprises have been building their own storage clouds, but until recently, the cloud was still unavailable to those without such vast resources. Within the last few years, several large, well-run, reliable commercial clouds have opened themselves up to developers and private users. With such storage facilities available, continuing to struggle with local storage—with expensive, hot, high-maintenance hardware—is the choice that will not seem sensible for long. Nasuni’s purpose is to make the transition easy. Try Nasuni out on just a portion of your files, and get a jump on the future.

Is cloud storage a viable choice for primary data?

It is now. Nasuni compensates for the shortcomings that have kept cloud providers from being able to deliver primary storage. While the cloud offers robust and redundant storage, it lacks performance, Local Area Network protocols, such as CIFS or NFS, and the ability to roll back unwanted changes. The Nasuni solution was designed to address all of these issues with its high-performance cache, full support for CIFS and NFS, Active Directory support and its snapshot technology.

How do I know the cloud won’t lose my data?

The cloud creates multiple copies of your data and stores them in many separate servers, so if one server fails, your data is safe in several other servers. In the event of a failure, the system automatically generates a new instance of your data in another server so the level of protection is renewed. Our cloud providers have data centers with thousands—or in some case, tens of thousands—of servers, so the chance that all servers will be down at once is virtually zero. Cloud providers can also guarantee that copies of your data will be held in multiple geographic locations. To ensure immediate and long-term data integrity, your data is verified when it’s first committed to the cloud, and a signature is created. Each time a copy is made, the copy is checked against the original signature to make certain the copies are perfect. As for security, your data is encrypted before it leaves your premises, so that it’s completely safe on the way to the cloud. It remains encrypted in the cloud and cannot be violated. Nasuni services are backed by a 100% uptime guarantee.

Isn't restore from an off-site location less reliable and too slow?

No. The cloud technology provides much better protection than traditional backup, and, unlike classic backups, you don’t need to test the cloud to make sure it hasn’t failed you. You can look at your files—even all your out-of-date files—at any time, but it is not necessary. They will be there for you if you need to restore them, and they will come back much faster than restore from offline backup. Traditional backup is notoriously slow. With Nasuni, a restored file system is available within minutes, putting your users back to work right away. To see a Nasuni restore in action, view our technical demo