Archive for: 2010/03
Follow us with RSSMarch 31, 2010
What’s in a Snapshot?
The term “snapshot” can be confusing. When people discuss it in the context of backup and file systems, they’re not always talking about the same thing. So we’re going to clearly define snapshots with regards to the Nasuni Filer—what the term means and what tools you can use to take advantage of snapshots.
March 29, 2010
Online versus Offline Synchronization
Many people have asked us how the Nasuni Filer is different from products like Dropbox and Jungle Disk. Detailing all the differences would require far more than a post. We want to focus here on the difference between their approach to synchronization and ours.
March 26, 2010
Cloud Storage News: Dell Expands Offerings
For quite a while now, Dell has been building machines with embedded VMware. You can buy a Dell box and it comes with virtualization already installed. The big news this week: Dell announced that the company is expanding its cloud-related offerings. They’re forging closer relationships with cloud providers, giving them the hardware they need to build new clouds.
March 24, 2010
Using the Filer as a Backup
One of our beta testers recently came to us with an interesting backup-related question. We figured we would discuss it briefly here, and use it as a good jumping off point to talk about how to use the Filer as a backup system.
March 22, 2010
Calling Home: Configuration Data and Key Escrow
The Filer does not stand in the path of your data, which moves directly to and from the cloud, but it does call home on occasion. We discussed the alert system in a previous post. Here are two more reasons.
March 17, 2010
Thanks to the Supporting Cast
Our group here at Nasuni is small, but capable of delivering complex solutions in short time frames. Given our size, we do require outside help, and we demand the same quick, effective turnarounds from our contractors and partners that we expect from our employees. These kind of people are not easy to find, but we have been lucky enough to enlist the services of a few stellar outsiders. They deserve proper thanks. So, here we go.
March 15, 2010
Data Security and the Nasuni Filer – Just the Facts
One of the core features of the Nasuni Filer is its end-to-end encryption. We strongly believe that the cloud is the future of storage, but unfortunately, most cloud providers out there today simply don’t have built-in encryption. Yet this is a critical feature for the long-term adoption of cloud storage. With that in mind, we’ve been working to design and implement a data security system that provides strong security while remaining easy to use and manage.
March 12, 2010
New Release: A Quick Patch
Last week we were excited to announce that the Nasuni Filer now supports Nirvanix. The new release went very well, but we did uncover a glitch that affected a few of our users.
March 12, 2010
The Donut Solution: Nasuni’s New UI
We heard you. Several customers have come back to us with comments on our initial User Interface—particularly the cache status widget. This graphic, created by a customer, sums it up:
March 10, 2010
A New Release and a New Cloud
We have been hard at work improving the Nasuni Filer. Today we are excited to announce a new release of the technology. This version (1.0-2068) adds a major new storage partner and addresses some of the concerns we have been hearing from our beta testers. You do not have to download a new version. The Filer updates automatically.
March 9, 2010
Caching the Cloud
We all know clouds offer affordable data storage, but this typically comes at the expense of performance. If your users cannot access their data quickly, those cost savings might not seem all that worthwhile. With the Nasuni Filer, however, you no longer have to trade price for speed. The Filer’s substantial local cache, managed by intelligent algorithms, ensures that files are there when your users need them.
March 5, 2010
Calling Home: Nasuni’s Alert System
Nasuni designed the Filer so that we can be completely removed from the data path. Our customers’ encrypted files move directly to and from the cloud, without passing through our servers, which translates to better security and performance.
Yet the Filer does call home to Nasuni.com on a regular basis. We will talk about this more in upcoming posts, but one of the primary reasons for this communication is our alert system. Basically, the Filer calls Nasuni.com when something goes wrong.
March 2, 2010
Security and the Nasuni Filer: Why We Use OpenPGP
The Nasuni Filer has a long list of unique, novel features, but we will be the first to admit that our decision to build its security around OpenPGP is not exactly groundbreaking. OpenPGP is the most widely used email encryption standard in the world. As we noted earlier, this is precisely why we adopted it. OpenPGP has been endlessly discussed, vetted, and attacked. Each attack has failed. The more failed attacks, the more proven the design.
March 1, 2010
Hello, VMUG Phoenix
Last week, we traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to the VMware User Group (VMUG) meeting, where we showcased the Nasuni Filer. Because the Filer is virtual filer server that runs on VMware, we wanted to connect with people who were already converts to VMware and show them how the Filer can improve their virtual environment further. We opened a public Share on a demo Filer and made it available to anyone at the show, and, at the booth, we demoed the Filer’s administrative features. Users were particularly curious about setting up multiple cloud providers and were surprised to see how easy it is to create a new volume attached to a specific provider. Restoring a file was another popular demo request, and we got a kick out of watching the wow factor at work when users saw how instantaneous it is.