ClearSky Expands Support for Network-Attached File Systems

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ClearSky Data, a provider of on-demand primary storage with built-in offsite backup and DR as a service, now offers expanded support for network-attached file systems, allowing customers to extend large file workloads to the cloud.

With the company’s new hybrid-cloud, scale-up NAS service, customers that need to protect extremely large file workloads, such as video and audio, medical images and records, and computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) drawings, pay only for what they need.

ClearSky Data’s Ellen Rubin

“The ClearSky service is ideal for health-care providers and research institutions to deliver hybrid NAS that enables deeper, faster analytics on large data sets for their users,” said Ellen Rubin, CEO of ClearSky Data. “These organizations are doing work that impacts everyone in society, and this technology helps them derive better outcomes, faster.”

According to the vendor, traditional on-premises NAS systems can’t meet this demand without introducing performance bottlenecks, infrastructure complexity, data-center sprawl and costs. This fragmented NAS approach without cloud integration makes it nearly impossible for companies to store and protect all of their data, or ensure it is available on-demand and at scale. ClearSky’s architecture delivers hybrid fully protected scale-up NAS without limits, giving organizations the performance and security of local flash arrays with the elasticity of the cloud.

Some of the ClearSky NAS service features include: high performance with minimal footprint; support for Windows and Linux environments using SMB and NFS protocols; integration with Microsoft Active Directory, Kerberos and other authentication services; support for user and group policies for storage allocation; automated cloud-based backups and DR; unlimited scale leveraging ClearSky Data’s cloud provider partners; and end-to-end encryption.

The up-and-coming vendor launched its first partner program, ClearSky Data Partner Acceleration, for MSPs and technology partners, just a year ago. Just last month, ClearSky partnered with Faction, allowing partners to spin up VMware instances and pay for them on-demand, similar to the way they do when spinning up storage resources.