Exanet Adds CDP To NAS Clusters

The Herzliya, Israel-based developer of ExaStore, a software application that clusters multiple servers into a single NAS appliance, plans to integrate continuous data protection to that application within the next quarter, said CEO Rami Schwartz.

With continuous data protection, or CDP, changes to data are backed up immediately or at certain pre-defined intervals to allow users to be able to instantly recover a deleted, corrupted, or modified file. While some applications allow data changes to be captured on-the-fly, most back up the changes at set intervals.

CDP has become an important part of the storage market, with several startups offering CDP solutions or being acquired. In the most recent instance, EMC in May purchased data replication and CDP developer Kashya for $153 million.

ExaStore brings value to low-end commodity servers by tying any number together into a single NAS cluster, Schwartz said. By tightly integrating CDP technology with ExaStore, clients can roll back their data to any point in time, he said.

ExaStore CDP monitors all targeted disks regardless of vendor and captures changes to blocks of data as they happen, Schwartz said. It can also replicate those changes every 30 seconds for disaster recovery purposes, he said.

Exanet currently has over 20 customers in the US, each of which is averaging over 30 Tbytes of capacity using the company's ExaStore software, Schwartz said.

The company already has a number of solution providers, and is looking to recruit more for its software. "We are a software company," Schwartz said. "This is the foundation of everything that enables us to be a channel-friendly company to hardware and ISV partners."

Solution partners who work with Exanet typically use the software with servers from vendors such as IBM or Sun Microsystems to build NAS clusters with performance higher than that of dedicated NAS hardware from companies like EMC and Network Appliance, Schwartz said. "We let them add additional profit to IBM or any brand of hardware," he said. "VARs can add value on top of selling storage hardware in addition to the margin they get selling our software."