Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Nasuni's Filer is delivered as software, downloadable from the web. It installs as a virtual appliance into a VMware environment and requires only 1GB of RAM. The local storage is then used as a cache for moving data to and from “third party cloud storage providers’ storage facilities like Iron Mountain’s. This cache can be almost any size and is used to store the most active files. The larger the cache size, the less likely a delayed access from the cloud. The other requirement is a high-speed internet connection for making this transfer. The entire environment is managed through a simple web browser interface. The Nasuni software is licensed on a flat, monthly fee and all you add to that is the capacity-based licensing of the cloud storage. 

The Nasuni Filer solution is more than a cloud gateway - it's a complete NAS file system that understands how to leverage the cloud. It provides the expected NAS features like snapshots, thin provisioning and hot standby, as well as robust and critical Windows integration components like CIFS, ACL support and Active Directory integration. When these features are combined with the cloud services that companies like Iron Mountain offer, the SMB IT administrator is provided with a full-featured environment that most enterprise NAS systems can't achieve. For example, since the cloud provider offers almost limitless capacity, there essentially is no limit to the number of snapshots and redundant copies of data you can maintain. 

Where the combination really shines though is in the case of a disaster. Since data is copied to the cloud storage provider continuously, if the primary site becomes unavailable all that's required is to start the virtual appliance in another facility. Once the new instance connects to the cloud storage provider, data is available to the users. Most importantly, only the local cache needs to be restored, not the entire data set. Not only can the IT administrator get the NAS back in operation but data can be provided without a lengthy recovery process. This could slash days off the return-to-operations time vs. other solutions in the SMB market. 

While Nasuni provides their customers with several options to choose from for their cloud storage provider, the case for Iron Mountain is particularly strong. First, unlike other cloud integration solutions on the market today this is primary storage and the bulk of that storage is going to be held off-site. With archive and backup data, a case, although debatable, can be made that the data is not as mission-critical so a risk can be taken when it comes to selecting a cloud provider. If that provider is storing the bulk of an organization's data and it has the only copies of that data, then the quality of the provider becomes critical. Understanding the technology that the provider is using is certainly important, but understanding how long the provider has been in the business of storing and protecting other organizations' data and their track record is probably more important. 

It's important to understand what steps the cloud storage provider has in place to make sure that the organization's data is protected, replicated and available in the case of something going wrong. It's also important that the provider have secure locations that are resistant to natural or man-made disasters. Again, this is not a second copy of data; if a local disaster occurs, the storage provider has a pivotal role in the resumption of operations. While Service Level Agreements (SLA) are important and should be read carefully, they're only as good as the infrastructure and discipline of the cloud storage provider that stands behind them. While failure to live up to an SLA provides legal recourse, it does not bring back lost data. Most businesses would rather have their data.

 

Even something less dramatic, like the corruption of a single database or the need for an older file because of an audit, may require that the provider be involved to help recover a prior version of that file. Proper policies and procedures must in place to make sure that the data can be accessed and recovered. Again, a company with a legacy of performing just that service should be top consideration. 

Finally it's important to understand the cloud provider's pricing models. While most charge a capacity-based fee, there are typically additional fees for storing secondary copies and other services. One that is not often noticed is a charge for data transfer back to the customer - in other words for a recovery. While this can be planned around with backup and archive systems to some extent, in primary storage it could become very costly. Every retrieval that is not in cache has to be fetched from the cloud. With the practice of using the cloud for primary storage, data will very frequently be going back and forth to the cloud provider. In this use case it's not hard to imagine a scenario where transfer costs are more expensive than the capacity costs. In the case of Nasuni, they have either negotiated this cost out with the cloud vendors they have chosen or have selected cloud vendors that don’t charge for bandwidth fees. Iron Mountain is one of the few cloud providers in the later group, they do not charge for bandwidth fees. 

Nasuni has delivered for the SMB market what could be the ideal file server. It combines the benefits of local NAS capabilities with the unlimited capacity and pay-on-use capabilities of cloud storage. Selection of the cloud provider, while always important, is probably more so when cloud storage is used for primary storage. Strong consideration should be given to Iron Mountain which has the legacy and track record of storing and protecting organizations' physical assets for decades and digital assets for more than 10 years.

George Crump, Senior Analyst