Cloud file data services supplier Nasuni has made its second acquisition in two months, buying UK-based Storage Made Easy (SME) for an undisclosed amount
Nasuni bought DBM Cloud Systems in May, spending some of the $60 million growth investment it raised in March. It gained software technology to move on-premises file data up to its cloud.
SME was set up by Jim Liddle in 2009 to provide an interface through which users could access all their different storage silos, such as FTP, SharePoint, Windows File Servers, email, SalesForce and BaseCamp. Customers could search all the silos through SME’s interface and apply common policies. This became SME’s Enterprise File Fabric, which provides file services on top of object. It presents a single pane-of-glass namespace across on-premises and cloud file/object storage and offers remote work and compliance features for cloud file storage.
Paul Flanagan, Nasuni CEO, said: “By adding remote work and compliance capabilities to the Nasuni platform through the acquisition of SME, we are giving organizations even more reasons to modernize their file data infrastructures, all while reducing capital and operational costs. This adds further capabilities to our ‘work from anywhere’ strategy, accelerating our file data services leadership.”
There is a Nasuni subtext to the “modernizing file data infrastructure” concept here, which is: you don’t need to buy on-premises filers any more.
Liddle added: “The combination of SME and Nasuni creates a suite of highly complementary, multi-cloud file data services for our customers and partners. Joining Nasuni is a natural move, and the SME team is thrilled to join the company and help advance the company’s leadership in the file data services market.”
He will join Nasuni as Vice President of Product, File Fabric, and the rest of the SME team will join Nasuni as well.
Nasuni will now get desktop synchronization for offline access, accelerated VPN-less access to file data for remote and hybrid workers, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Office 365 integration, and enhanced enterprise search capabilities for regulatory compliance.
Liddle told us: “We started working with Nasuni as a partner about three years ago and over time we acquired several joint customers as well as a deeper technology integration and alignment because of that success. The technical fit was always very strong and the joint proposition was compelling, i.e. Nasuni addresses the core storage and ransomware/backup piece while we add data management and application solutions for accelerated VPN-less ‘anywhere’ access coupled with real-time data compliance.”
Mike Shepard, Enterprise IT Architect at RES, the United States’ largest ecological restoration company, said: “We deployed Nasuni with AWS object storage a few years ago to replace our on-premises NAS and file backup solutions, and more recently added SME, so the combination makes perfect sense.
“When the pandemic hit, we realized that we needed a borderless workflow without the pain of VPN to make remote file sharing simple for our users. Nasuni and SME enable our engineers to connect to project shares from home with ease, synchronize files to their desktops for fast access, and quickly search large amounts of corporate file data for the information they need.”
Liddle added: “Nasuni approached us about acquiring the company as part of their file services vision and, given we knew a lot about Nasuni from the partnership, we felt that Nasuni had a huge market opportunity disrupting the existing NAS players (such as NetApp and Dell Isilon) with their cloud approach to file services, particularly given the current industry approach to hybrid and remote working.
“It was just a no-brainer to put the company’s together as the thinking is that, jointly, we can build a large standalone cloud storage company and disrupt the bigger legacy players.”
As a result of the acquisition, Nasuni gains an additional presence in the UK. This should help expand its EMEA footprint, which grew in March with the opening of the company’s new innovation center in Cork, Ireland.
