eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
SoftNAS, which makes a software-defined cloud network attached storage system for midrange-size companies, has solved a problem for many smaller IT shops: Those who are used to a data center NAS or a SAN (storage area network) and are coming to cloud environments and finding that those conventional functions are nowhere to be found.
To take this transition up a notch for those struggling to implement global systems, Houston-based SoftNAS announced May 2 that it has joined forces with Talon, a Mount Laurel, N.J.-based provider of enterprise-class file-sharing software for distributed locations, to enable global storage consolidation into an enterprise cloud.
The combination of Talon FAST and the SoftNAS Cloud NAS provides joint customers with an alternative central cloud-based storage namespace that is secure, highly resilient and can grow on-demand, Michael Richtberg, SoftNAS Vice-President of Business Development, told eWEEK.
The new integrated solution, available May 2, enables high-performance global file locking, file access and sharing for all users across a global enterprise, Richtberg said.
Moving Everything to the Cloud Without Re-Engineering
“Our customers are generally looking for secure, easily accessible cloud storage for unstructured data. AWS and Microsoft Azure are our lead partners; what we do is what they can’t do: help customers move to the cloud without having to do any re-engineering,” Richtberg said.
One of the key targets for moving to the cloud are unstructured data stores. The combination of Talon and SoftNAS delivers a petabyte-scale topology for distributed file servers to be consolidated into limitless, highly-available cloud storage, Richtberg said.
Talon FAST enables a global fabric which gives virtually any enterprise location the ability to access and use cloud-resident file shares because they traditionally have on-premises file servers, without changing user experience or workflow. The combination of a distributed network file system, intelligent caching and global locking allows globally distributed enterprises to operate under a central storage system view.
This ability to centralize data has large benefits as enterprises decommission costly-to-maintain file servers around the globe. Talon FAST optimizes the flow of information within the enterprise, enabling all offices to work off the same set of data.
Operate Globally, Think Locally
“Talon gives you what the cloud doesn’t, which is enterprise-class file shares with all the resiliency and performance enhancements you would expect from an on-prem system,” Talon Senior Vice-President Chuck Foley told eWEEK.
“What Talon does is this: Let’s say you are a user in London, and your file shares are somewhere in Azure U.S., for example. You can navigate just like you do today to an engineering directory, go to your projects sub-folders, find Project 123, hit point and click – and that might be a 100GB file or more. That file that is stored and managed in the cloud and locked for data coherency, but the bits can be presented locally while the main file is stored, managed and locked centrally. Any changes or additions to that file are differenced back to the main file in SoftNAS.
“It literally treats every user in the world as if they’re in the same location using the same file server in the basement.”
The SoftNAS/Talon package doesn’t store data at the edge, and it doesn’t replicate data at the edge—the data is all stored in one place: the SoftNAS cloud. Often-used files, however, can be cached in edge devices as needed.
The collaboration can provide organizations with a single software-defined storage footprint, versus the legacy distributed storage architecture which requires localized management, backup, security, and audit for the proprietary hardware footprint in each location.
Talon FAST is available as a site-based annual subscription or as a joint offering with Microsoft Azure Storage and Hybrid Cloud solutions in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. SoftNAS is available as an annual subscription and on-demand in Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS.