Nasuni has its sights set on running legacy hardware-based file infrastructure out of the storage race with new enhancements to its Cloud File Services platform for remote working, cloud migration, and critical file protection that the vendor says enables a more scalable and collaborative global file store. It also tackles the scalability challenge that hinders traditional infrastructure appliances.

The Boston-based cloud-native file storage company targets distributed hybrid cloud deployments, providing a consolidated storage service with built-in backup, replication, and offsite protection through an on-site appliance that connects to the cloud to reduce storage costs. These are backed up by cloud file storage using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to provide more scale than on-premises network-attached storage (NAS) systems, with built-in backup and disaster recovery.

The Nasuni platform syncs and shares files across cloud storage gateways, basically serving as a global public cloud file fabric that renders on-premises filers obsolete.

The Nasuni updates add support for Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop, coupling cloud file storage with cloud virtual desktops at a lower cost than traditional file storage, according to the vendor. And it provides additional performance support for Nasuni file shares for Azure Ultra Disk and Premium SSD tiers to increase performance in edge appliance cloud configurations.

For AWS, Nasuni now supports AWS’ Snowball Edge device to deal with file migration to AWS. According to the company, AWS Snowball coupled with Nasuni Cloud Migrator technology enables remote sites to migrate massive data sets with low bandwidth. 

Also included in the update is a health monitoring capability for all edge appliances along with faster recovery times for appliances that need to be restarted. There is also an active global file that can lock servers across Europe, the U.S., and Asia to increase resiliency and performance of remote file locking and file synchronization.

Nasuni also added capabilities that it claims can get previous versions back up and running again in a matter of minutes or a few hours after a ransomware attack. This includes tips for stopping the infection; identifying the infection time and virus type; tuning the system to increase the speed of recovery; and restoring files as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“You can only do so much to prevent a ransomware attack ... the key is having a plan to recover as quickly as possible,” the company writes. 

Nasuni left backups at the door, and yes, on purpose. Nasuni CTO and co-founder Rodriguez believes backups are an “intrinsically dangerous operation” because it requires making a copy of the entire file system. People are inherently flawed, so “by automating and building into technology the things that tend to be done by hand with processes and with people ... the technology then becomes really good." 

Cloud File Services UniFS, an infinite, immutable, versioned file system, eliminates the need to bring in another technology – like a Rubrik or Cohesity – to copy outside data, which Rodriguez said “adds a ton of risk.” 

"We didn’t build our file system to respond to ransomware. We built it so that it wouldn’t need backup and would instead self-protect.” he added.

“NAS unified” – Nasuni – is Rodriguez's answer to a file storage experience that began almost almost two decades ago. Rodriguez was at the forefront of data archiving and content preservation problems as CTO of The New York Times at the height of the first wave of internet media companies. 

It was during the dot-com era that Rodriguez had two realizations. One: there were problems of scale that were beyond the capabilities of even the largest organizations; and two: what happened with websites was going to happen to file storage. Everything was going digital and the technology couldn't keep up, he added.

"The problem of files is a problem of scale,” Rodriguez said.

After leaving The New York Times, but before co-founding Nasuni, Rodriguez launched Archivas, a storage platform for massive media archives. This caught the eye of Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), which eventually bought the company for $130 million in 2007. Rodriguez  served as CTO of its File Services Division where Archivas has served as the backbone for the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP).

While at Hitachi, Rodriguez spent a year “bumping into walls” with the vendor, trying to transition the company away from the addiction of selling hardware boxes to being a technology service provider on an ongoing utility. And then Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Microsoft Azure Storage hit the market.  

“They were building what we had just built [at Archivas]," Rodriguez said in explaining the genesis of Nasuni. "And we couldn’t architect the way we wanted to within an established company." 

Hitachi Vantara today also announced updates to its HCP object storage portfolio.

Nasuni also announced that it has secured an additional $25 million in new equity financing alongside a $15 million debt facility to compete in the crowded — and increasingly well-funded — market for cloud-based storage.

Data storage software unicorn Infinidat has raised $325 million in funding over three rounds; Qumulo, which offers a software-defined distributed file system, has secured $222 million over six funding rounds; and Panasas, a parallel file system software provider, has bagged $155 million in financing over nine rounds.