Netgear ReadyNAS Brings Virtualization to SMBs

NETGEAR, Inc. announced that its ReadyNAS family of unified network storage devices for the Small- to Medium-sized Business (SMB) market are certified as compatible with VMware’s industry-leading ESX 4.0 virtualization solution.

With this announcement, NETGEAR’s ReadyNAS storage products can be fully integrated with VMware, providing SMBs with the benefits of virtualization at an affordable price point. As a result, NETGEAR channel partners can now deliver virtualization solutions to SMBs for as little as $1,000 in a desktop form factor.

"Server virtualization is traditionally the domain of the datacenter. NETGEAR ReadyNAS systems can now bring cost savings and availability to SMBs with newly affordable solutions," said Drew Meyer, director of marketing for NETGEAR’s Network Storage Business Unit. "NETGEAR is committed to staying at the leading edge of feature functionality for SMBs, so our choice to integrate with VMware was an easy one."

NETGEAR’s entire ReadyNAS product line, from the desktop ReadyNAS Pro and ReadyNAS NVX, to the rack-mountable ReadyNAS 2100 and 3200, can take advantage of this new certification using the Network File System (NFS) protocol. Now, SMBs can reduce their server and storage costs while simplifying infrastructure management and flexibility. SMBs seeking first-time virtualization can cost-effectively implement a certified ReadyNAS with VMware solution and eliminate dedicated file servers, while current ReadyNAS users can easily deploy a VMware solution without purchasing additional storage capacity. And partners can use ReadyNAS to deliver a powerful and still affordable unified storage solution.

Rich DePas, principal at Data Coordination, is pleased with his experience with ReadyNAS and VMware. In a solution he built for a small dental office, he deployed a ReadyNAS 2100 with VMware to host two sessions over NFS. "I feel much more confident running my business on the ReadyNAS 2100 than on old outdated servers. I have as many as 200 users hitting my ReadyNAS, so I needed a solution that could scale with my customer base. And since all business-critical data will be stored on the ReadyNAS 2100, a failure of the mounting server won’t be a major problem. The other server will simply mount the 2100 and they’ll be back online in a few minutes."