Nasuni Featured as Google Cloud Assured Workload Partner

April 24, 2024 | Bobby Silva Nasuni Featured as Google Cloud Assured Workload Partner

The development of data sovereignty requirements and similar compliance regulations has added a new dimension of complexity to cloud deployments. Organizations looking to modernize their file data infrastructure by transitioning to hybrid cloud storage may have to ensure their data stays within a certain country or region, for example. But what we call cloud consists of globally distributed facilities in specific places, so this is a solvable problem.

Today I’m thrilled to share that after validating the Nasuni File Data Platform with Google Cloud’s Assured Workloads, we are one of the partners to support this exciting new program. Together with Google Cloud, Nasuni is going to be able to help more companies, organizations, and agencies constrained by strict compliance standards leverage effortless and cost-effective scalability, fast access to files, and built-in security against ransomware and other threats.

SLED, Healthcare, and More

This applies to a range of regulated industries, including healthcare and the state, local, and education (SLED) market, plus any number of private sector companies. On the healthcare and SLED front, Nasuni customers that take advantage of Assured Workloads will be able to satisfy a variety of requirements, including:

CJIS: The cost-effective scale, simple management, and built-in security that come with the Nasuni File Data Platform have long made Nasuni appealing for state and local government agencies. This new technology integration with Google Cloud’s Assured Workloads means Nasuni now satisfies Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) standards required by law enforcement agencies, which means we can expand to entirely new workloads and help more government organizations manage their file data more efficiently.

Data Sovereignty: Certain regions or nations such as Canada have strict data sovereignty laws, and Google Cloud’s Assured Workloads makes it easier for organizations to specify these distinctions, and ensure that their data resides where it’s supposed to reside. For architectural reasons, I’ll detail below how Nasuni effectively builds data sovereignty and compliance solutions using Assured Workloads for cloud customers in sovereign regions.

HIPAA: Google Assured Workloads will extend Nasuni’s compliance with HIPAA regulations for organizations in the healthcare and life sciences industries.

What makes this partnership work from a technology standpoint is relatively simple: Nasuni is a software-as-a-service platform with a cloud-first architecture and Google Cloud Assured Workloads offers a modern solution that allows companies to more easily run regulated workloads.

The Google Cloud Difference

One of the main things that sets apart Nasuni on Google Cloud is the price at scale. This has proven to be extremely attractive to customers that need to store PB-scale volumes of file data. State and local government agencies, for example, need to retain CCTV footage for extended periods. These workloads are highly archival in nature, but the agencies must be able to find and access this data without latency.

In effect, these organizations need archive pricing with fast performance. Google Cloud has three object storage tiers, all of which offer ultra low-cost, highly durable, highly available storage with sub-second access speeds. This allows organizations using Nasuni on Google Cloud to pay one-fifth to one-third the cloud storage costs of the other leading providers.

Why Architecture Matters

Nasuni effectively puts this technology to work for your organization. Whether you are a local government agency or multinational, your data doesn’t reside in or with Nasuni. Our platform operates between your locations and the cloud object storage backend. So, if you are running Assured Workloads in Google Cloud, you deploy Nasuni inside your own project. Then Nasuni effectively inherits the values and virtues associated with that Google Cloud deployment. If you have set up your Assured Workloads to maintain data in a certain region, Nasuni automatically adheres to that.

Assured Workloads + Assured Efficiency

Meeting the CJIS standards means we could be a tremendously impactful new tool for federal, state, and local governments tasked with storing, protecting, and managing massive volumes of file data on limited budgets. A police department that needs a secure, cost-effective place to store evidentiary data for the long-term – and recall that file data easily and reliably on demand – could leverage Nasuni and Google Cloud Assured Workloads.

Many government agencies are required to store CCTV footage captured at various properties and facilities for extended periods. Storing PBs of file data on traditional or even cloud-backed storage hardware is expensive, unreliable, and difficult to manage. The upside of this approach was that you knew where the data resided. Nasuni and Google Assured Workloads can provide that same degree of assurance and compliance, but with all the economic and operational benefits of hybrid cloud storage. Agencies, departments, and governments will be able to reduce costs, strengthen data protection, simplify management, and access the footage they need faster.

A Simple Solution for Compliance Complexity

The ability to comply with changing and sometimes conflicting global regulations is going to be essential in the years ahead. GDPR was just the beginning. Now we have state-level regulations like the California Consumer Protection Act and more. Cloud providers like Google will continue to enhance services to meet the evolving needs of their customers across different markets and regions. And our core architecture puts us in a perfect position to be the file services leader for compliance-related workloads across multiple industries. This new designation and recognition from Google Sovereign Cloud has put Nasuni in a great position, and now we are all looking forward to helping more compliance-focused organizations maintain data sovereignty and accelerate their transition to hybrid cloud storage as soon as possible.