Nexenta Redefines the Storage Industry – Again – with the Industry’s First Container-Ready, Scale-Out Software-Defined Storage Solution; Simpler, Faster, Scale-Out Block and Object Storage for OpenStack and Docker Clouds

NexentaEdge Enables Container-Converged Infrastructures and Application Mobility; Provides Persistent Storage Services to Docker-based Application Microservices Running on the Same Servers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – April 25, 2016 — Nexenta (@Nexenta), the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS), today announced significant updates to its award-winning block and object storage platform, NexentaEdge, including seamless integration with OpenStack and Docker environments.  

NexentaEdge was the first software-only, scale-out, multi-service storage solution to deliver cluster-wide inline deduplication and compression, offering high-performance, simplified management of petabyte-scale repositories. Now, with the latest updates, the block and object software-defined platform includes additional performance optimizations for all-flash and hybrid configurations, tightly integrates with the OpenStack ecosystem to simplify deployments in OpenStack clouds, and adds support for container-based deployments and Docker environments.

“While both OpenStack and container technologies are growing in adoption, scalable storage is a key component in optimizing these ecosystems for the enterprise,” said Henry Baltazar, Research Director, Storage at 451 Research. “Legacy hardware appliances cannot provide the scalability demanded by rapidly growing data volumes. Companies need to look to software-defined storage to take advantage of the inherently flexible nature of OpenStack and container environments.”

In addition to full iSCSI, NexentaEdge now supports native block device services, allowing hyperconverged OpenStack deployments to run Nova nodes directly on the NexentaEdge cluster. To fully automate deployment and configuration of NexentaEdge nodes in Canonical OpenStack environments, Juju Charms are available from the Canonical Juju Charms Store. All NexentaEdge Cinder drivers are also fully integrated in the OpenStack Mitaka release.

”We selected NexentaEdge as our scale-out storage solution to support a petabyte scale OpenStack cloud for the university,” said Dr. Paul Calleja, Director of High Performance Computing Service (HPCS) at the University of Cambridge. “NexentaEdge’s storage efficiency using cloud copy-on-write, inline cluster-wide deduplication and compression allowed us to get the most out of our existing hardware and provision more virtual machines. The ease of management with a self-healing, self-balancing core for automatic avoidance of hot spots and failed components has been critical in supporting more than 20,000 students and faculty.”

“We have implemented a content delivery solution using NexentaEdge along with Pluribus Networks switch software on Dell switches,” said Joe Little, representing a technology department at a leading private university in California. “The combination of the NexentaEdge Replicast™ protocol and the Multi-Listener Discovery support provided by Pluribus Networks VCF-powered switches allow for the deployment to scale out as needed while maintaining low latency between storage nodes.”

Additional product enhancements include:

  • Cinder drivers for OpenStack Icehouse, Juno, Kilo, Liberty and Mitaka releases, with full integration in the OpenStack Mitaka release.
  • High performance block services for hybrid and all-flash configurations.
    • Contrary to most scale-out software solutions on the market, NexentaEdge runs directly on raw physical devices in its storage nodes, eliminating the complexity and performance overhead of local file systems on these devices. For hybrid configurations, NexentaEdge leverages SSDs in each storage node to coalesce random write IOs and serialize the data that is pushed to backend disks.
  • Simple deployment and configuration through Canonical Juju Charms. 
  • Performance profile based software deployment and streamlined management through self-documenting REST APIs and cluster CLI.
  • Container-based deployment option, providing persistent storage services to Docker based application microservices running on the same servers.
  • While NexentaEdge can be deployed on a wide variety of x86 based industry standard servers, Nexenta maintains detailed NexentaEdge configuration guidelines for:
    • Cisco, Dell, HPE, Lenovo and Supermicro servers.
    • Arista, Cisco, Dell, Mellanox, Pluribus and Supermicro networks.

Existing key features of NexentaEdge include:

  • High performance Swift and S3 Object Services.
  • Patented Cloud Copy on Write design delivering enterprise grade data integrity, high performance distributed caching and unlimited space optimized snapshot and clone capabilities.
  • Cluster wide in-line deduplication and compression of all data stored in the cluster, at any scale.
  • Ability to scale storage capacity and performance (I/O per second or throughput) independently of each other, supporting all flash, hybrid and all disk configurations.
  • Low touch operational model with automated capacity and performance balancing with real-time data placement optimization.

“The introduction of NexentaEdge brought the first high performance block and object software-defined scale-out storage solution to deliver cluster-wide inline deduplication and compression to the market,” said Oscar Wahlberg, Director of Product Management at Nexenta. “We are now furthering this innovation by enabling storage freedom and application mobility in Docker environments and offering seamless integration with Canonical OpenStack clouds.”

“Rancher is pioneering how Docker will be implemented in the Enterprise by helping organizations build private container services that run on any infrastructure,” said Sheng Liang, co-founder and CEO at Rancher Labs, Inc. “Nexenta is truly leading the way in building SDS solutions on the container ecosystem, enabling the mobility of application microservices with persistent storage.”

“High performance networking is an integral part of a scale-out storage solution, especially when storage media gets faster with Solid State Drives (SSD) and Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technologies seeing wider adoption. We’re excited to work with Nexenta to  enable linear scalability of their scale-out software-defined storage solution, NexentaEdge, with Mellanox flagship Spectrum switches that feature not only high throughput of 25/40/50/100Gb/s, but also low latency, fairness and zero packet drop,” said Chloe Jian Ma, Senior Director of Cloud Market Development at Mellanox. “With NexentaEdge’s ability to take advantage of advanced networks solutions through NBD support and Replicast, we are confident that this partnership and the joint solution will deliver new value to our customers, meeting the demand for high performance, cost-efficient cloud storage solutions.”

Pricing and Availability
NexentaEdge’s perpetual license lists from $0.15/GB to less than $0.10/GB at capacity plus maintenance and support. NexentaEdge is now also available for purchase directly from the Juju Charm Store or from a Canonical sales representative. For more information, please contact sales@nexenta.com.

For more information on NexentaEdge, please visit: http://nexenta.com/NexentaEdge.

Further resources and details on recently announced NexentaEdge integrations can be found below:
Lenovo integration
Canonical integration
Micron & Supermicro integrations
NexentaEdge Datasheet
NexentaEdge Blog

Tweet This: .@nexenta delivers enterprise-grade storage to @OpenStack and @Docker ecosystems via enhanced #NexentaEdge solution. #OpenSDx #OpenSDS 

About Nexenta
Nexenta is the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS) with 6,000+ customers, 400+ partners, 42 patents, and more than 1,500 petabytes of storage under management. Nexenta uniquely integrates deep software-only “Open Source” collaboration with one of the largest and most vibrant Open Source communities (46,000 members) and a comprehensive vision around a commodity hardware-centric “Software-Defined Storage” innovation enabling ANY app, cloud platform and protocol. Nexenta is 100% Software-based; and 100% hardware-, protocol-, cloud platform-, and app-agnostic providing organizations with Total Freedom protecting them against punitive “vendor-lock-in”, “vendor-bait-n-switch”, and “vendor-rip-n-replace” gimmicks. Nexenta provides enterprises with the "true" benefits of “true” Software-Defined Everything-centric Cloud Computing – from data centers to end users; from the infrastructure to apps. Nexenta enables everyday apps from rich media-driven Social Living to Mobility; from the Internet of Things to Big Data; from OpenStack and CloudStack to Do-It-Yourself Cloud deployments – for all types of Clouds – Private, Public, and Hybrid. Founded around an "Open Source” platform and industry-disrupting vision, Nexenta delivers its award- and patent-winning software-only unified storage management solutions along with enterprise-scale 24x7 - around the globe - All Love - service and support with a global partner network, including Canonical, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Docker, HPE, IBM, Lenovo, Micron, Quanta, SanDisk, Seagate, Supermicro, VMware, Western Digital, Wipro, and many others. Nexenta:  100% Software. Total Freedom. All Love.

For more information, visit, www.nexenta.comTwitterFacebookLinkedIn and YouTube. Also, download the newly published Nexenta Special Edition Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC) for Dummies eBook.

Nexenta, NexentaStor, NexentaConnect, NexentaEdge and NexentaFusion are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nexenta Systems Inc., in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, service marks and company names mentioned in this document are properties of their respective owners.

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Media Contact:
Emily Carey
Karbo Communications
650-704-6786
nexenta@karbocom.com

Company Contact:
Allison Darin
Director of Communications & Public Relations
Nexenta Systems, Inc.
831-359-8208
pr@nexenta.com

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