NexentaStor 3.0 by Nexenta: In-Line ZFS De-Dupe for Primary Storage

Nexenta Systems introduced NexentaStor 3.0, an upgrade to the company’s enterprise class storage solution based on the file system ZFS, and Virtual Machine Datacenter (VMDC) 3.0, a new release of its virtualization management platform.

The new version of NexentaStor is the first commercial storage solution to incorporate ZFS-based in-line deduplication, a giant leap forward for the storage industry. NexentaStor 3.0 also includes support for Microsoft Hyper-V, making it the only storage solution to support all major virtualization environments. With this announcement, NexentaStor continues to build on its position as the superior alternative to expensive, monolithic and proprietary storage technologies.

Data deduplication has emerged as the most important storage innovation in the last five years. According to a December 2009 TechTarget survey, 60 percent of enterprises view primary storage deduplication as their most important disk-related initiative in 2010. EMC’s 2009 acquisition of deduplication vendor Data Domain for over $2 billion further underscores the critical role of this technology. The rise of server virtualization has provided greater impetus to deduplication since virtual machines, and their associated storage, can consume a significant amount of high-performance, expensive primary storage. Until now, however, deduplication technology has been available only at a high price from vendors who have built proprietary, siloed solutions that impact only secondary data – either disk-based backup and replication or archiving and compliance. As a result, an organization can have multiple deduplication approaches – and data stores – that do not work with each other, thereby dramatically increasing costs.

NexentaStor 3.0 revolutionizes storage by providing deduplication for primary (production) storage. This functionality enables customers to reduce their use of expensive and scarce primary storage. NexentaStor 3.0 exceeds the functionality of legacy deduplication by offering bi-directional replication with compression and deduplication, superior end-to-end data integrity, accelerated I/O through the native use of SSDs, and hardware accelerators leveraged by the revolutionary ZFS file system.

All the above listed capabilities are leveraged to their fullest in the Nexenta Virtual Machine Datacenter (VMDC) 3.0 release based on NexentaStor 3.0. With its new support for Microsoft Hyper-V, NexentaStor is the only product to support VMware, Citrix Xen and Hyper-V virtualization platforms from a single point within one unified environment, VMDC. VMDC allows storage administrators to see their entire virtual environment and to provision storage and storage policies including backup, replication and retention policies from a simple point and click interface.

Both NexentaStor and VMDC run on industry-standard hardware, a fundamental pillar of Open Storage, thereby driving acquisition and upgrade costs dramatically lower than those of proprietary solutions. Further, by making storage and virtualization management more efficient, the products also reduce operational costs.

“The ongoing adoption of Nexenta’s OpenStorage solution is proof that there is still room for innovation in the storage market from emerging companies," said George Crump, analyst for Storage Switzerland. “By adding a robust in-line deduplication capability along with their other capabilities in managing storage for virtualized environments, Nexenta has established itself as a vendor to watch in 2010 for organizations with growing storage requirements and restricted budgets.”

Additional capabilities in the Nexenta 3.0 release include:

• Greater ease of use for high availability functionality
• Enhanced support for a broader array of hardware including 10Gbe Ethernet and SAS-2 controllers for increased performance
• Simplified disaster recovery support via multiple enhancements to underlying ZFS based replication

“NexentaStor 3.0 sets a new bar for not only our company but also the storage industry,” said Evan Powell, Nexenta CEO. “By adding the exact features enterprise customers are demanding – unmatched deduplication and comprehensive support for the virtualization technologies that matter – we are once again proving that open, standards-based approaches will beat proprietary through innovation as well as dramatic cost savings.”

NexentaStor is a hardware independent storage solution built upon the ZFS file system. NexentaStor runs on industry standard x86 servers and provides NAS and SAN capabilities including support for CIFS, NFS, iSCSI and Fiber Channel storage access. For the first time, customers can experience the benefits of enterprise storage, including high performance and air tight data integrity with multiple replication methods, without the vendor lock-in and aged technologies of legacy storage vendors. NexentaStor customers typically experience 75 percent cost savings versus proprietary solutions from increased efficiency through compression, thin provisioning, and the use of hybrid storage pools that leverage SSDs plus disks. The addition of in-line deduplication and support for Hyper-V will further magnify the value and return on investment of Nexenta OpenStorage solutions.

Availability and Pricing
NexentaStor 3.0 will be available by the end of March 2010. Upgrades to NexentaStor 3.0 are available, at no additional cost to NexentaStor users.

To download a free trial of NexentaStor