Nexsan Unity, Unified Storage Solution With Secure Enterprise Sync and Share

Nexsan, Inc. announced UNITY, a storage platform that combines the performance, scalability and value of DRAM and flash along with private cloud file system synchronization and true data mobility support.

These features, in addition to universal connectivity for FC, Ethernet and SAS, and services including NAS and SAN, are all integrated into a single product at a single price.

According to IDC, data is doubling in size every two years with the predicted total amount of data topping 44ZB by 2020. This data is commonly stored in distinct silos which limits the user access that supports today’s mobile workforce. Business users demand high performance access to information (structured or unstructured) from anywhere in the world at anytime, from any device. Further, access to this information must be present 24×7 and its security is of paramount importance to the enterprise.

Many siloed storage, data management, file sync and share and security solutions exist to provide for these individual requirements, but are typically cobbled together in costly, inefficient and unreliable ways. UNITY addresses all of these requirements in a single unified solution which delivers high performance and multi-site collaboration at LAN speed to support BC and DR processes as well as mobile access to primary storage data.

Delivering high-performance multi-site collaboration, UNITY offers enterprise n-Way Sync. This functionality makes UNITY the only enterprise filer to deliver high performance unified storage with site-to-site enterprise synchronization. Enterprise sync is supported across distributed primary storage at LAN access speeds, improving user productivity while leveraging an organization’s secure infrastructure, leveraging Active Directory and access controls to prevent unauthorized user file access. This assures that data is in sync across multiple sites and locations while securing content with encryption at rest and in flight with self-encrypting drives and encryption keys. As a result, users have the mobile access they demand while IT can assure the security and control needed to remain compliant.

UNITY’s patented technology is designed to support all devices – from mobile devices to tablets, laptops and desktops running Android, iOS, Mac and Windows- and provides a secure connection to data stored and managed within the enterprise totally eliminating the drudgery of using unpopular and aging VPN technologies. Mobile workforces will have the freedom and flexibility to access and share files securely across all of their devices – no matter where they are – for enhanced business productivity and data security.

“Today’s NAS and SAN storage solutions have ignored the need for secure access to protected data maintained within the enterprise,” said Bob Fernander, CEO, Nexsan. “With Nexsan UNITY we’re providing a means to extend primary storage across and outside the enterprise in a secure manner. We’ve combined the power and performance of our Nexsan unified storage platform with the cloud flexibility of our Transporter private cloud file sync and share appliances. The result is a unified storage solution like no other – providing simplified file sharing, secure data access and comprehensive storage for the datacenter.“

Most storage systems do not integrate mobile support, yet performance, security and cost concerns, make cloud-based solutions like Dropbox and Box an inadequate option. Likewise, private deployment of software based ‘hub and spoke’ synchronization solutions work well only if there is a single site from which primary data is accessed. This  firm’s storage solution provides authorized mobile devices with access to files stored on UNITY as an extension of its solution. It provides a patented method for connecting mobile users to their primary storage behind their enterprise firewall and combines this with the ability to connect users to other synchronized volumes available elsewhere within the enterprise. As a result, users achieve high performance with high data availability and data access from an alternate source if their primary source is unavailable.

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UNITY delivers an enterprise feature set for small, midsize, and large businesses. Company’s FASTier caching accelerates performance to meet demanding I/O requirements. This unified platform supports FC and iSCSI connectivity in addition to NAS and SAN protocols. Unified HDD and SDD support can be tailored for the best mixed application deployment environment. For organizations facing extreme data growth or needing greater application performance, the UNITY family scales from 13TB up to 5PB. UNITY matches flexible, performance datacenter storage with the private cloud technology behind firm’s Transporter family of private cloud file sync and share appliances. Known in the industry as one of the simplest solutions for secure file sharing, Transporter is an on-premises solution that uses a unique peer-to-peer approach to enable secure remote access to primary storage from anywhere on any device.

UNITY is available with pricing starting at $45,000 MSRP.
Mobile access will be next quarter with desktop apps, sync and share soon after.