Replacing Legacy Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Legacy file storage was originally intended for single office sites. This has become a challenge for companies using file collaboration among multiple sites. Files need to be copied from site to site, stored and shared so users will have access to and work on the same, up-to-date files. At the outset, this practice requires double the amount of storage minimum, because backups are made of the files as well, in case of file corruption or malicious attacks. So, the required investment for storage ends up being three times the cost to protect the primary data. This is where legacy NAS falls short.

Chassis Sprawl

Data storage is a very competitive market. To its credit, NAS technology has evolved to make on-premises storage expansion easy. Too easy in fact. Adding more of the same single-minded technology is very easy, and if you are not careful, you can end up with a never-ending rack of NAS devices storing current data and old data alike.

 

 Panzura breaks the traditional paradigm of constantly expanding your on-prem storage footprint as your storage needs increase with its Hybrid Cloud approach. Panzura filers are sized for the work environment and NOT how much data you need to store. Whether 10Tb, 50Tb, 200Tb, 1 Pb, Panzura controllers easily scale to meet the largest unstructured data sets without requiring an ever-increasing hardware platform.

Built for Cloud

The latest trend in NAS technology has been to leverage cloud storage for backup, disaster recovery (DR), and in some cases, actual file storage. It was long overdue and an excellent addition to this NAS storage market. The cloud has several advantages and few disadvantages. Cloud storage is very scalable, durable, and affordable. Amazon S3 standard storage for example is designed for durability of 99.999999999% with 99.99% availability over a given year. That is where the cloud advantage ends, and the disadvantage begins. Cloud is a distant location with inherent latency to access and no amount of bandwidth can fix a latency problem.

So how do you leverage the good without the bad? Built from day one as a Global File System, Panzura leverages all the advantages of the cloud without any of the drawbacks.

If you took a peek under the hood, this is how you would see Panzura handle your data every time you write data to Panzura – in other words, what happens when you start with hybrid cloud and don’t just tack it on later.

Dedup -> Compress -> Encrypt -> Transmit to the cloud (single source of truth)

First let’s start with Global block level data deduplication and unpack that:

• Global – every Panzura filer everywhere
• Block Level – not at the file level but at the storage block level – more efficient and better results
• Deduplication – reducing the amount of data stored and transmitted

Then the files are compressed for reduced overhead in storage and transmission. Next files are encrypted and transmitted to the cloud. Did we mention that this process happens every 60 seconds?

Cache is King

Why store old, never-accessed data alongside current data? Panzura is the last NAS you will ever buy thanks to the Global File System’s use of deduplication, compression and encryption. Panzura controllers are sized based on workflow and not the overall amount of storage. This “cache” allows you to grow your overall storage without having to constantly add more drives or servers.

Say good-bye to forklift upgrades. Panzura controllers are virtual machines, so you can add more virtual resources as needed or migrate to newer hardware when the workload dictates.  That is something regular NAS just cannot do as easily.

But Wait. There is More…

Panzura keeps your files on-prem next to the users for speed just like NAS. Unlike NAS, Panzura uses the cloud as its single source of truth. Also, unlike regular NAS, Panzura has snapshots for DR and backup built in. A separate backup system is not needed. So, there is even less equipment to maintain. Since it is a global file system, Panzura deduplicates data globally, thereby reducing storage costs across your entire corporate environment. The equipment you do have can be more focused on the job at hand. No NAS on the market does that.

Ransomware is also not an issue. Because of the immutable nature of the Panzura file system, encryption of files by bad actors is nothing to worry about. IT professionals can simply step back to a point before the encryption event for the file or folders of files.

In addition, no NAS on the market has the capability for global file system locking at the edge, ensuring 100% data consistency. That’s right, opening a file in one location guarantees it is locked against overwrite in every other location. All your users and applications can thus collaborate across the globe on a single global file system. If the application supports network locking, it will work on Panzura.

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For a demo of global file system locking, contact the Panzura experts of the Applied Software Digital Transformation Team today.

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Cost of Legacy Storage

Using the cloud, your company can significantly reduce the amount of hardware needed for data storage. Using Panzura to unify and protect your enterprise data reduces your expense on IT resources for copying, implementing, managing, expansion, and workarounds. Panzura can help you eliminate islands of storage that interfere with collaboration and reduce productivity. No legacy NAS solution has those capabilities.

With Panzura, you can benefit from real-time data protection, file consistency, cyber-threat protection, data durability and recovery, and storage cost savings.