The Cloud
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 unlimited protected storage at a lower cost than businesses can provision on their own, it lacks performance, Local Area Network protocols, such as CIFS, and the ability to roll back unwanted changes. The Nasuni Filer was designed to address all of these issues with its high-performance cache, full CIFS and 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.
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’s totally unnecessary. 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.
What if the cloud I choose goes out of business?
The clouds we offer meet tough standards for availability and data integrity; they are well-respected, and, in our judgment, here for the long haul. If, by a shift in fortune, one of our partners goes out of business, you will have a chance to move your files to another cloud before it closes up shop. Nasuni keeps your data in a portable form, so there is no vendor lock-in. Because clouds have already become an integral part of the data infrastructure—and daily take on a larger share of the workload—we are confident that there will always be clouds to serve as Nasuni’s storage partners. Nasuni will offer cloud-to-cloud migration services in upcoming releases.
Nasuni in General
Does Nasuni hold my files?
No. The cloud provider holds your files. The 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. We also ensure your files are safely delivered to the cloud provider of your choice. Think of Nasuni as your trusted courier. We deliver and retrieve your files reliably, but we do not store them.
How does the cloud know how much storage I need? Do I have to estimate my usage up front?
No. The cloud lets the Filer use as much storage as it needs, when it needs it, without any management from you. It’s all automatic. With Nasuni—as with a utility—you’ll never be charged for more than you use. The Filer, frugal on your behalf, also optimizes your storage consumption, by saving only deltas to the cloud rather than complete versions of revised files, so you won’t overspend in that way, either.
How do I know my data can be accessed only by me?
Data is encrypted by the Nasuni Filer 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.
Will Nasuni and cloud storage save me money?
Yes. The total cost of the Nasuni, including both the fee for the Filer and the cloud storage capacity itself, is considerably less than a comparable investment in local protected storage. With Nasuni, you can expand your existing storage capacity without purchasing additional hardware. Because Nasuni protects your files with snapshots, in conjunction with the redundant architecture of the cloud, 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; however, 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?
The cloud providers, if you go direct, will not automatically manage your capacity for you, or track and save file changes, or ingest your new files efficiently and without effort on your part. They will not snapshot your files—ever, let alone at the frequency of your choice. They will not change your working set according to use patterns. We do all that. Plus, we absorb the cost of providers’ read/write and bandwidth access fees so your costs will be consistent and dependent only on capacity.
Can I use more than one cloud at the same time?
Yes, and we make it very easy to do. When you create a new volume in your Nasuni Filer, you select which cloud you would like to send its files to. Regardless of the multiplicity of cloud providers, volume management and access control are centralized in the Nasuni Filer. Our clear billing allows you to track what you are spending where.
Can I change clouds at any time, if I want to switch?
Your data is held in a portable format, so you may switch clouds. It’s better to choose wisely at first, however, at least for now. We have a bulk data movement tool in the roadmap, but as of today, it would take quite some time to funnel all your data back through the Nasuni Filer into the new cloud. We advise that before you really get cranking, you consider what services you’ll need on which files, and partition your files accordingly. We make it very easy to create new cloud volumes (see the previous question or our technical demo). You will still get one simple bill, regardless of how many clouds you opt in to, and having multiple clouds will not increase your management burden, because Nasuni handles the flow to the clouds for you and centralizes control in the Filer.
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.
Why don’t you have your own data centers?
Given that established players are already doing it well and have given developers access to their data centers, we have decided to focus on a new and pressing problem: How to transition from the classic NAS to a cloud-provisioned file server without having to toss out what was still working about the NAS environment.
The Nasuni Filer
Can I replace my current NAS with a Nasuni Filer and still get all the NAS functionality?
Absolutely. Though the Nasuni Filer does much more than traditional NAS, it retains all the NAS functionality. It’s fully compatible with Windows Shares and Active Directory. Shares are created and access control is managed in a familiar way. You can also consolidate any number of NAS boxes into one Nasuni Filer, which, given the Filer’s unlimited storage capacity and single management interface, will simplify your IT life considerably.
Does Nasuni Filer deduplicate files before sending them to the cloud?
The system is designed so that each time files in the cache are resaved to the cloud, those files are deduped and only the deltas are sent up, so near duplicates do not congest your network bandwidth or swell your capacity and cost in the cloud.
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 Filer is log in to your account on the nasuni.com website, download a new image of the Filer, and reinitiate the setup. Nasuni’s setup wizard will recognize that you had 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. The Nasuni Filer, being a virtual appliance, will also benefit from additional high-availability schemes already in place in your data center.
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.
Performance
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 your cloud storage provider. Typically, files begin to download in a few 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?
Yes, the size of the cache is adjustable. It is limited only by the capacity of your local infrastructure.
What is a cloud volume?
A cloud volume is the term for a single file system attached to a cloud, where that file system's data is stored. You can easily create or delete volumes through the Nasuni Filer's simple control interface. With the Filer, you can create multiple volumes attached to same cloud, or you can attach volumes to different clouds in order to 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 and attach them to whichever cloud you choose. 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 reprovision. You can, however, set capacity quotas.
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 reestablished. The snapshots, however, continue, and Nasuni reintegrates them into the system in the cloud when the connection is restored.
For architectural or engineering firms, with giant files only accessed once every few months, what would the access speed be like for users?
Customers with large files or large working sets should create a generous local cache in order to avoid performance issues.
Who is responsible if there is a problem?
We are. We are your one-stop shop for all support issues. The Nasuni Filer has been instrumented to provide our support staff with plenty of diagnosis data. We will track down any issues and coordinate your cloud providers. Our technical support staff is here 24/7 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. Files being brought into the system land in the local cache and are then sent as a snapshot to the cloud. In a first-time bulk migration, the local cache may become full. At that point, the Nasuni Filer will push back on the application, asking it to pace additional writes. All of the well-established migration tools handle this gracefully. If, however, you do a large drag and drop instead of using a migration tool, the client will think the cache is the limit of your capacity and may give you an immediate error message saying that the target disk is not big enough for the move. For your trial, we recommend you start off with a small drag and drop of, say, 10 GB. For a bulk migration, we recommend using a migration tool, such as Robocopy (which comes bundled with some versions of Windows).
File Protection
Can I replace backup/restore with Nasuni?
Yes, 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. As for disaster recovery, because the cloud holds an up-to-date version of your files in a remote location all the time, and Nasuni can restore it for you to any location in minutes, you are totally covered. Nasuni is designed to be an all-in-one file storage and protection system. Nasuni is not a backup solution for databases or email servers, however. You will need a separate system for them.
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 into the Nasuni Filer, 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 Nasuni provide disaster recovery for my files?
It can. Storing your files in the cloud, simply because the cloud is off-site, already provides a level of comfort you don’t have when storing locally. Add Nasuni to the picture and 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.
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Pricing
What does the Nasuni service cost?
The cost of Nasuni is a combination of the flat fee we charge for the Nasuni Filer and the charges you accrue for your cloud storage usage. For Filer fees and cloud storage rates, consult our pricing page.
How much does the Nasuni Filer cost?
For our Filer, we charge a flat monthly fee. What that fee is depends on your subscription level. We offer three subscription plans: month to month, 1-year prepay, and 2-year prepay. The longer your commitment, the cheaper the Filer fee. Visit our pricing page for details. Note: Filer subscription prices do not include cloud storage costs.
Why do I have to pay you a monthly fee? Why can’t I just buy your software outright?
The subscription service fee structure allows us to offer you enterprise-class storage at a very affordable price. To deliver cloud storage to you in a way that is integrated with the working life of your company, we have to do a lot that is beyond the scope of a traditional software company. Not only do we produce, maintain, and update the software, as classic software companies would, but we also manage the relationship with the cloud providers, process and consolidate the billing for cloud capacity, monitor cloud performance around the clock, and address any issues that arise. In order to be viable as a company, we must charge a subscription—or mark up the price of the cloud storage, which we do not do. In fact, our flat fee absorbs the variable read/write and other niggling fees the clouds charge you if you go direct, so part of what you’re paying us for is to standardize your cloud costs each month.
Does Nasuni charge per user?
No. We do not charge per user, and you can add an unlimited number to the system. There is one price for the Filer, and the cost of the cloud varies according to how much storage you use, not how many of you are using the storage.
Why are cloud storage costs not included in the subscription prices?
Cloud storage costs vary from provider to provider and from month to month, so we can’t charge a flat fee for them without restricting choice and setting capacity limits, which we would never want to do. Your subscription price gets you this: License to use the Filer, headache-free access to multiple cloud providers, and autopayment for all costs.
What are cloud storage costs?
Cloud storage costs are usage charges for your volumes in the cloud. “Usage” here refers to capacity only, not to data-transfer and other fees. We absorb those fees, so you pay only for capacity. (Note: You are still responsible for your internet service fees.) Your cloud storage rates depend on which cloud providers you are using with your Nasuni Filer. When you install the Filer, you have the option to pick a provider or have a provider selected for you; when you add additional volumes, you are also given a choice of providers. These providers have different rates. To help you make your choice, our cloud providers page offers profiles. Current provider rates can be found on our pricing page.
How is my cloud storage usage calculated?
Every day, your Filer sends Nasuni a report on your storage usage for that day, broken down by provider. We track these daily capacity figures over the course of 30 days and, at the end of the month, average them up, per provider. Those averages are what appear on your invoice in the “Capacity Used” column. If we do not receive capacity information for a day or two, those days will be excluded from the average. For example, if there are 30 days in your current billing cycle, and we get statistics for only 28 of those days, your average daily storage capacity will simply be an average of those 28 days, the assumption being that the usage for the other 2 days is pretty similar.
How much will my cloud storage costs be?
That depends upon how much storage you use and the per/GB rate of the provider you have chosen. For provider rates, click here. Note: 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes.
How can I estimate my cloud storage costs?
Use our cost calculator. Enter your current storage needs and your expected data growth rate, select your cloud storage provider, and the calculator gives you an estimate of your monthly, yearly, and total costs, from now to three years out. It delineates what portion of the cost is due to the Filer and what to storage, so you can see their relative expense.
When I delete data, will my cloud storage usage and costs decrease?
In this version of the Nasuni Filer, we keep all snapshots for your data forever. This means that even when you delete data from your filer, the data still exists in a previous snapshot and occupies space in the cloud. Note that Nasuni uses advanced deduplication technology and compression to minimize the costs of these snapshots.
To bring down costs, can I purge old snapshots from the cloud?
At this point, you can’t. Because cloud storage is inexpensive, we haven’t had a lot of interest in this feature. If, in the future, we get a critical mass of customers requesting purge, we will add it to a later release.
Who sets the cloud storage prices?
Nasuni sets the prices; however, we try to match the clouds’ own pricing as closely as possible, because we don’t want to mark up cloud storage. The reason we set the prices and don’t pass the exact cloud costs through to you is that provider pricing plans can be very complex and can include data-transfer and other fees. To keep your invoices and budget planning simple, we assume the burden of these fees and regularize the base price per GB, making cloud costs more predictable for you. We are working with the providers to make this a sustainable model.
Are there any signup fees?
No. To sign up, you just pick your subscription plan and pay the Filer fee for the following month, year, or 2 years, depending on the plan. Storage charges will kick in with the second invoice (because they are based on actual usage and calculated in arrears).
Are there any hidden fees?
There are no hidden fees. In fact, we absorb data-transfer and other fees that some cloud providers charge if you go direct. The only fees we can’t control and you may not expect are state sales taxes. If you have a sales tax in your state, don’t be surprised to see that line item on your invoice.
When can prices change and how will I be notified?
Nasuni reserves the right to adjust the Nasuni Filer fees or the cloud provider rates at any time. You will be notified with your monthly invoice of any fee or rate change. Changes will also be posted on our website. Cloud provider rate changes will go into effect in the billing cycle following notification, so you can expect to see rate changes on the next invoice. For Filer fee changes, the effective date depends upon your subscription level. For month-to-month subscribers, the fee change will appear a month after notification, on the next invoice. Anyone who has prepaid for their Filer, however, will continue at the old price until the end of their prepaid period. There will be no surcharges. When your subscription renews, you can then expect to see the higher fee on that month’s invoice.
Subscribing
How do I subscribe?
Subscribe using our simple buy wizard, or call us at 508-651-0580, press 3 for sales, and we will assist you. If you’d like to try before you buy and have not yet, register here for a free trial. You do not need to be a trial user to subscribe.
Why do you require autorenewal for my subscription?
Autorenewal is a practical for several reasons, but the most important one is this: It functions like autopay, because it allows us to keep your credit card on file. Autopay is necessary to our system because, even if you select a prepaid option for your Filer fees, your cloud charges accrue monthly, and they are larger than we can shoulder with a slower payment method. So autopay enables us to pay your cloud providers for you, sparing you the task of managing multiple vendors. Autopay also protects you from the risk of our misinterpreting late payment as a cancellation. We can only keep your data in the cloud for as long as you are paying for the service. After that, and a grace period, we would be forced to shut down your account and delete your data. So we’ve set up a payment system that fully protects your data.
Will you warn me when my subscription is about to autorenew?
If you have one of our prepaid plans, you will receive a reminder with your invoice a month before autorenewal. If you have a month-to-month plan, which “autorenews” every month, we will assume you know.
Why is my offer code not being accepted by the buy wizard?
Codes are not case-sensitive, but any hyphens and numbers in the code must appear exactly as they do in our offer. Please check the values you are entering to be sure they match the original. It may also be that the offer has expired or that the code was already used. Codes may not be reused. An error message in the wizard should indicate either of these scenarios. If none of these is the case, please call contact support.
How do I upgrade my subscription level?
You can upgrade at any time from the Subscriptions Details page in the My Account section of the website. There is no penalty for upgrading mid prepayment period, and your savings on the Filer begin right away, at the start of your next monthly billing cycle.
When will I be billed after I upgrade my subscription?
For those upgrading from month to month, you’ll be charged at the start of your next monthly billing cycle. That month’s invoice will include the cost of the prepaid option you have chosen. For those upgrading from the 1-year plan, your credit card will be charged at the moment of upgrade, a special invoice will be generated, and you’ll receive immediate notification via your preferred bill delivery method. Your next monthly bill will reflect the new subscription level, but the Filer charge at that time will be zero, because you will already have paid.
How much will I be charged up front if I upgrade?
If you’re on the month-to-month plan and upgrade, you won’t be charged anything until the start of your next monthly billing cycle. Then you’ll be charged either 12 or 24 times the monthly cost shown on our pricing page. In the meantime, we’ll send you a note saying we received your order for the upgrade and it’s all lined up, ready to happen. If you’re on the 1-year prepaid plan and upgrade, your total upfront charge will be calculated from your original start date like this: The standard 2-year total price, minus the prorated cost of the months that have already passed, and minus the prorated cost of the months of the 1-year plan that have not yet passed. To see what that adjusted amount would be for you today, go to Subscriptions Details in My Account, click UPGRADE, and we will calculate your total for you before you commit.
When will my new renewal date be if I upgrade?
If you upgrade from month-to-month, your renewal date will be 1 or 2 years from the start of your next monthly billing cycle, depending upon your new level. If you upgrade from the 1-year plan, your renewal date will be two years from your original start date.
Can I downgrade my subscription level?
Your rate cannot be downwardly adjusted until the end of your prepaid commitment. If you want to downgrade, call us in the month before your renewal date, and we will assist you.
Billing and Payment
How often will I be billed?
You will receive an invoice monthly. The balance on this invoice will be automatically charged to the credit card on file the day the invoice goes out. The invoice is for your records and requires no action.
How am I invoiced? Can I get my monthly balance as TXT message?
For now, you will be emailed an old-fashioned PDF invoice. But we’ll soon have numerous options for invoice/balance notification. Keep your eye out for changes in the My Account section of the website. You’ll be able to have your balance sent to you via TXT or made available online for viewing, and many other choices. In the My Account section, you’ll also be able to view graphs and charts that synthesize your invoice data over the course of many months and years, so you can track trends in your storage usage and costs.
On what day of the month will I be billed?
You are assigned a monthly invoice date close to the day of the month on which you subscribe. You will be invoiced monthly on or close to that date. If you would like to be invoiced on a different day of the month, please call support at 888-662-7864.
What will I be billed for on these monthly invoices?
You’ll be billed for the cloud storage you have consumed in the previous month, and any Nasuni Filer fees that are due for the coming month. Your cloud storage costs are based an average of your daily usage for the prior month and the per/GB cost of the providers you have chosen. You’ll see a breakdown of your storage usage by provider on your bill. Nasuni Filer fees will be due if the plan you selected is autorenewing that month.
How do I pay my monthly Nasuni bill?
Your bill is paid automatically with the credit card we have on file. This payment goes through on your invoice date. If we have any trouble with your credit card—if it expires, for instance—we will contact you immediately for a new payment method.
Will I be billed for the cloud storage I used during the trial period?
Absolutely not. It’s a free trial. Your first invoice will show what your last month’s usage was, so you can see it, but you will not have to pay for it. The costs will be zeroed out. If you keep your trial volume after you subscribe, however, you will immediately start incurring charges for that volume. You’ll be invoiced for that usage, along with any additional usage, on your next bill. If you are planning to start from scratch and delete your trial volume, we advise you do so right after you subscribe so that it doesn’t inflate your monthly capacity average. Note: For a clean slate, you must delete the whole volume. Even if you deleted all a volume’s data, old snapshots would still be retained in the cloud, driving up your total capacity. Best practice after subscription if you intend to start afresh is thus:
- Import your own encryption key into the system.
- Create a new volume using this new encryption key.
- Delete trial volume.
Why am I invoiced monthly if I prepaid for 1 year?
You prepaid the Nasuni Filer fees, but your cloud storage charges are calculated and due monthly.
Will I receive a separate bill from my cloud providers?
No. At the end of each monthly billing cycle, Nasuni will send you one consolidated bill, with one total, charged automatically to your credit card. Your providers will be listed as separate line items, so that you can review their costs, but payment will be handled by us.
I already have an account with a cloud provider. Can I use that account and pay my provider directly?
Not at this time. Nasuni handles the signup and management of your cloud providers for you. Note that because we are absorbing data-transfer and other cloud fees, your bill will likely be lower and easier to read if we continue to handle this for you, but we may have other options in the future nonetheless.
Your Invoice
What will I see on my standard monthly invoice?
A standard invoice consists of a summary displaying your total charges for the statement and reminding you of last month’s total as a point of comparison, followed by three more-detailed sections:
- Storage Charges: An itemized list of your cloud providers, showing, for each provider, your average daily usage over the course of the previous month and what the storage charges were for that usage. For details on how usage is calculated, click here.
- Nasuni Filer Charges: A reminder of which subscription plan you’ve chosen and how far through any prepaid plans you are. A column for number of Filers, which you can ignore for now. (In later releases, we will support multiple Filers.) Any charges due on your subscription for the coming month, year or years, depending upon your plan. Any discounts.
- Totals: State sales tax, if applicable. Total charges.
For an example, see our sample bill:
What will I see on my first invoice?
On your first invoice, you will see the whole format of the standard invoice, but only the Filer section will show any charges or discounts. The Filer, even if you have the month-to-month plan, is paid for in advance, so the charge goes through at the moment of subscription and your first invoice records that. You will not see any cloud storage usage charges, because they have not yet accrued. If you are a trial user, you will see what your capacity was for the previous month, but the charge will be $0. Charges for that capacity and any additional capacity begin to accrue upon subscription.
Do the items I’m billed for cover the same period?
No. The Nasuni Filer is paid for in advance, regardless of which subscription plan you chose, while cloud storage costs, because they are based on actual usage, are all in arrears. For the Filer, you pay when you subscribe, when you upgrade your plan, or when your plan renews (a monthly plan “renews” monthly). In each case, you are prepaying for the next period of the plan. For storage costs, you pay monthly for the capacity you’ve used since your previous invoice.
Why are there line items for each cloud provider on my invoice?
The cloud providers are itemized on your invoice so you can easily review their relative costs and your capacity usage for each. They may have different prices, or those prices may change over time, and it’s helpful to see at a glance what you’re spending on each provider and how much capacity you are getting for it.
Why does the cloud storage capacity reported on my invoice differ from the amount I’ve written to my Filer?
There are several possible reasons for this:
- The Filer encrypts and compresses all data it sends to the cloud, which can save considerable space.
- The Filer stores metadata (information about your data such as filenames, permissions, etc.) as well as data. This metadata (although compressed) consumes space.
- The Filer takes snapshots of your data at regular intervals and saves them to the cloud, and although we compress them—and deduplicate the data generated between intervals—snapshots consume space.
On my invoice, there is a column entitled “Number of Filers.” What is that about?
Currently, we only support one Filer per customer account. In the future, we’ll support multiple Filers. The Filer charge is based on the number of Filers in use, not on capacity or number of users. So, in the future, if you have a Filer in each of your two offices, in San Francisco and New York, for instance, you would be charged for two Filers. On the other hand, one Filer can serve as many users in a single office as you need it to, and its storage capacity is unlimited.
Cancellation Policy
Can I cancel my subscription, and will I get a refund for prepaid plans?
You can cancel. According to our license agreement, you can terminate the agreement at any time by discontinuing use of the Nasuni Filer and notifying Nasuni. However, unless you decline to accept the user license agreement during the Filer setup and call us within 30 days of subscribing, there are no refunds. Please see our end user license agreement for details.
What happens to my data if I cancel my subscription?
If you want to preserve your data you must do so before you cancel your subscription. We retain your data for 30 days, after which your data will be permanently deleted. You may opt to keep your data with your current cloud providers and start paying them directly. Upon request, we will provide you with your cloud credentials so that you can do so. It is your responsibility to request your credentials from us.
If I don’t agree to the license agreement when I’m setting up the Filer, can I get a refund for my subscription?
Yes, you can. If you have not accepted the license agreement and want a refund, notify Nasuni within 30 days of subscribing. After 30 days, you are no longer eligible for a refund. To request a refund or to discuss the end user license agreement, call 508-651-0580 and press 3 for sales.
How do I close my account?
Please call Nasuni at 508-651-0580 and press 3 for sales.