UPDATED 07:15 EDT / DECEMBER 01 2014

SoftNAS seeks to simplify storage management for the rest of us | #reinvent

Rick Braddy. SoftNASMoving to the public cloud is turning into a more attractive alternative to the complexity of running private infrastructure by the week, but the operational challenges higher up the stack become the same as those in on-premise environments. One such priority is managing the configuration and allocation of storage capacity. In a recent interview on theCUBE, SoftNAS LLC founding CEO Rick Braddy told SiliconANGLE his startup is shooting to make storage allocations as easy as provisioning the underlying hardware resources.

“We put web servers and those sorts of things in the cloud for a long time, but now the mainstream mission-critical applications are moving, too,” Braddy observed to theCUBE host Stu Miniman in their discussion at Amazon.com Inc.’s re:Invent cloud summit last month. “And of course, when you move the apps, the data follows.”

Making that information available to the applications that need it is is easier said than done when it comes to mission-critical workloads, which pose an additional set of requirements beyond merely exposing the data in the right format. SoftNAS offers a software-based storage filer that abstracts away the complexity of the challenge under centralized controls that it claims can help users meet operational needs without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure.

As part of that value proposition, the technology supports multiple environments, including both on-premise Linux servers running VMware Inc.’s hypervisor and major public clouds. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the most popular destination among the supported platforms, according to Braddy, with sales through the built-in marketplace accounting for the biggest chunk of SoftNAS’ revenue.

The startup offers its solution in three versions that range from a terabyte to 16 petabytes of maximum capacity plus a trial offer that is available at no charge on low-performance instances, the founder detailed. The commercial editions are billed on an hourly basis, which removes the barrier to entry that comes with traditional license-based software.

That enables SoftNAS to target smaller businesses that couldn’t afford storage filers in the past, opening up a previously inaccessible market. Braddy noted that the model has also proven popular among larger organizations, including Netflix Inc., Boeing Co. and other household names that now rely on the startup’s platform for some of their mission-critical workloads. The firm saw its customer base expand twentyfold since joining the AWS Marketplace a year ago on the back of that demand, which he said is continuing at the rate of 45 percent revenue growth every month.

Affordability is only one of the factors driving that momentum, however. Even more important is that SoftNAS is enabling customers to “treat storage just like they would treat a SQL database: another infrastructure component that needs to be highly available, protect your data and have no downtime,” according to Braddy.

To broaden the appeal even further, the startup is extending that value proposition to the hybrid cloud with newly added support for Docker aimed at turning the freedom of seamlessly moving containerized applications across different environments from theory into practice. The challenge that has prevented this flexabiliy from materializing thus far is the same that SoftNAS built its software to address: the need to move not only the application but also its data in a way that meets operational requirements. According to Braddy, the cross-platform support and replication capabilities of his startup’s platform makes that a reality.

Watch the full interview (16:06)


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