Hello Nasuni,

Welcome to the Nasuni Newsletter! It's been two months since we launched the beta version of the Nasuni Filer. Tracking the Filer's progress out in the world has been very exciting. Many thanks to all of you who have tested the product. Your feedback and enthusiasm have been indispensable.

For a roundup of what we and our Filer have been up to—and what’s ahead—read on!

And stay tuned for the GA launch.

All the best,

Andres Rodriguez
Founder and CEO

The Nasuni Filer in the Field
In the first week alone after the beta launch, we saw more than a hundred downloads of the Nasuni Filer. Setup proved as easy as we hoped. Most beta users were able to bring up the software, connect to the cloud provider of their choice, and push files to the cloud on their own. The few who needed assistance launching the software had minor issues, and, with the help of our 24/7 support team, are now up and running. Our behind-the-scenes provisioning system that links the Filer with the cloud APIs worked as planned, pushing hundreds of gigabytes to the cloud without a hitch. Users gave us productive feedback on our UI and our Active Directory integration, and we've been making adjustments in a series of releases.

Nasuni Beta Users—Who You Are
The product has now been tested by the IT departments of hospitals, law offices, government organizations, design firms, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturing firms, schools, real estate agencies, and engineering firms. Companies as small as 10 people and as large as 20,000, from more than 30 countries, are trying us out.

Beta testers have been evaluating the Filer for primary storage and backup (the latter for both onsite restores and disaster recovery). Some are using it to consolidate NAS boxes, and some as a back end for collaboration tools such as SharePoint.

We're very excited to see the product being tested in the field in such a variety of ways and by such a range of companies. Please send us any stories of how you're using the product, so that we can share your solutions with other customers and prioritize features for new releases.

A special thank-you to all the beta testers who have taken the time to talk with us on the phone. Learning about your specific needs has been invaluable, and touching base with you personally is always energizing.

The Press Response
We were thrilled with the response in the press and the blogsphere. Derrick Harris at GigaOm, Jon Brodkin of ComputerWorld, and Tony Asaro at the INI Group’s Voices of IT gave us stellar coverage, to name only three. Check out the Media Coverage page on our website for a broader sampling. Thanks to everyone who wrote about us!

Interest from Partners
Since the launch, many hardware companies (OEMs), value-added resellers (VARs), and cloud storage providers (CSPs) have reached out to us. For OEMs, packaging our software on their hardware is a great way to transition their customers to the cloud, retaining customers that might otherwise migrate to the cloud through other channels. The Nasuni advantage for the VARs is much the same, and a VAR can opt to resell Nasuni alone, or as part of a hardware package. CSPs benefit from working with us because we expand the use cases for the cloud—taking it from an archiving and backup tier into primary storage. We're excited about all these new relationships and are currently working out the details in ongoing talks.

New!! Cloud Partner—Nirvanix
Nirvanix has just come onboard as our third offered cloud. Nirvanix is an excellent partner and a terrific option for our customers.

The Nasuni Blog
Our blog is well underway. Check it out and subscribe to our RSS feed! Thus far, we’ve covered the state of the cloud storage industry and the details of Nasuni’s technology. Going forward, we'll broaden out to include customer use cases, as well as more educational posts about NAS, SAN, and data protection. If you have suggestions for topics, send them here.

Events—VMUG
The end of February found us promoting the Filer at the VMware User Group conference in Phoenix. It was great to meet potential users and discuss the benefits of a virtual NAS to the cloud with virtualization enthusiasts. See our blog post about the event. If you'd like us to come to an event in your area—whether it’s VMUG or another type of event—please let us know. We want to meet you!