Nexenta Systems
Software and Storage Redefined

The enormous influx of data associated with social media, mobile applications, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have ushered-in a new era of IT that’s up-ended the status quo. Never before has so much data and so many applications traversed such an overwhelming number of platforms. Yet while hardware and software solutions have proliferated, storage choice has been constrained. Even with the move to the cloud, the proliferation of open platforms, multiple protocols, and software-defined everything, enterprises are being sold on ‘Software-Defined Storage’ that doesn’t support diverse IT ecosystems. It’s the antithesis of where companies want to be today. Enterprise IT lives in a world where applications, protocols, hardware, public, private and hybrid networks, proprietary solutions and open source must peacefully co-exist. Unfortunately as IT struggles to create a storage infrastructure that supports a multi-platform, petabyte-driven environment, the proprietary hardware element in most Software- Defined Storage solutions limits their choices. Nexenta, the originator of Software-Defined Storage solutions (SDS)—chooses to be different.

Six years ago, when seeing that companies were deploying best of breed applications and platform solutions across multiple systems, Nexenta’s founders made an informed decision to support the technology needs of their customers. Headquartered in California, the company originated the concept and term ‘SDS’—realizing that by taking a zero-hardware approach and freeing soft¬ware from the constraints of hardware, storage could be set free to support almost any environment. With their first product NexentaStor, the company developed an open framework and Software-Defined Storage solution that functioned on any protocol—block, file, x86 platform and any hard disk or flash or even hybrid environment. In fact, Nexenta remains the only software-only SDS company to support solution-rich and diverse corporate ecosystems.

“Today, NexentaStor and NexentaConnect are the only storage options that remain completely application and hardware-agnostic,” says Tarkan Maner, Chairman and CEO of Nexenta Systems. “By not selling appliances, we deliver storage software untethered by the limitations of any single hardware platform, including VMware, Citrix, OpenStack, Cisco, HP, Dell, SuperMicro and Microsoft products. This literally transforms the storage ecosystem.”

Hardware vendor lock-in is one of the primary hurdles many companies go thorough after investing in a storage system. As the storage needs of users or companies increase, they are forced to upgrade and buy the most fitting hardware that work in conjunction with their storage software needs at that time. Nexenta clearly understands that no environment is static, so they use a ‘people, process and product- oriented’ strategy to assess both current and future storage requirements. The company relentlessly strives to free customers from the muddle of legacy storage systems that prove to be confining and more expensive in the long run.

In one instance, Wipro, a leading IT consulting and system integration firm approached Nexenta to provide the data storage infrastructure for thousands of their virtuadesk users. With NexentaStor, Wipro saw that its end users could have great flexibility in their hardware purchases as well as access to user profiles at dramatically higher speeds. This was achieved in the most cost-effective way. “We achieved great performance metrics while being able to scale ourstorage capacity without excess expense,” said Andrey Zhulenev, general manager of Wipro. With success stories like this, Nexenta also enjoys noteworthy alliances with disk and flash vendors such as Seagate, SanDisk, Western Digital, and Samsung.

The company employs a friendly, customer-centric approach, assisting organizations in deploying the most appropriate storage software solutions, ensuring highly available data reduction, data compression and replication.

Nexenta’s culture is all about fusion, the company credits its success to talented and diverse workforce with deep acumen in the storage, including open storage technologies. Overall, Nexenta creates a dynamic environment to excel and lead in the storage arena. Innovation alone is not just enough to succeed. Any form of innovation must translate into financial, legal and operational results. Nexenta thus believes in embracing latest technology trends and investing in IT innovation to stay ahead of competition.

Our open source collaboration combined with software defined everything innovation OpenSDx-delivers thousands of customers a flexible, vendor agnos

The Company You Keep
In less than five years, Nexenta has amassed over 6,000 customers and nearly 1,000 partners across the globe. Their customers have deployed more than 1 Exabyte of storage globally. Nexenta is a respected global brand and has successfully etched out a unique disruptive reputation in the international market, Maner states. “The concept of ‘zero hardware software’ has been a winning formula. We take pride in the fact that we’ve helped thousands of companies clean up the MESS left by Massively Expensive Storage Systems. We’ve helped them lower overall storage costs with our collaboration with the Open Source community along with deep innovation around the Software Defined Everything which we call as OpenSDx,” said Maner. “As a result, 2014 was the biggest fiscal year in the company’s history; and we have big plans to redefine the IT industry in the next few years with our 100% Software, Total Freedom and All Love approach.