Cloud Gateway Maker Nasuni Adds Data Migration Service

Cloud systems gateway provider Nasuni on Jan. 20 announced a new migration service for its Nasuni Filer, which is designed to move existing file server data more efficiently to selected cloud storage providers.

Nasuni Filer is a virtual NAS file server/front end that runs on VMware and uses publicly available cloud resources-namely, Amazon S3, Iron Mountain Digital, Nirvanex and Rackspace-to handle primary data cloud storage.

Thus, Nasuni-a small company-doesn't have to compete with all those big names; instead, it feeds its storage business right to them.

The new 2.4 release of the Filer includes a native data migration service that can move large data sets to the cloud while preserving a customer's existing ACLs (access control lists) and permissions, Nasuni founder and CEO Andres Rodriguez said.

An ACL is a list of permissions attached to an object. An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects.

Nasuni's migration service automatically adjusts the system's ingestion rate to make it simpler and more efficient to move data, making it no longer necessary for admins to use a third-party copy utility. Users can choose to migrate from multiple file servers simultaneously simply by adding them as data sources to the Nasuni Filer.

The new data migration service also provides administrators with audit logs and makes them available as text files, Rodriguez said.

"Customers have been asking for a simpler way to move data to the cloud. We knew that we could simplify migration dramatically by adding it as a built-in service," Rodriguez, a former CTO of The New York Times, said.

A free trial download of the Filer is now available.