Panzura Debuts Version 3.0 of Its Global Cloud Storage System, With Lightning Fast Cloud-Integrated Storage, Secure File Sharing and Global Collaboration for the Enterprise

LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire - May 8, 2012) - From the 2012 Interop IT Conference and Expo in Las Vegas, Panzura, a leading provider of global cloud storage solutions, today unveiled a sweeping update to its Panzura Operating System (PZOS) and Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controllers. PZOS 3.0 marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the Panzura Global Cloud Storage System, extending the company's lead in enterprise cloud-integrated storage, global project collaboration and workflow sharing. At massive cost savings compared to on-premise NAS solutions, it delivers a rich set of enterprise-grade features that make it the only cloud-integrated storage system capable of delivering true network attached storage (NAS) functionality with native cloud support, a globally distributed file system, built-in enterprise security and data protection, as well as high speed data transfer rates to and from the cloud, all in a single, seamless data storage solution with unlimited scalability.

Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controllers have received a major hardware upgrade with increased memory and faster CPUs, 10GbE connectivity, more greatly optimized disk configuration and a 50-percent increase in local cache capacity, with local raw storage scaling up to nearly one-third petabyte (PB). Available in virtual and 1U and 2U form factors, Quicksilver controllers feature expanded capabilities, such as local pinning and improved caching, to make them a truly cloud-integrated NAS alternative to local NAS storage for unstructured data.

Concurrently, Panzura announced strong growth and revenue in the first quarter of 2012, bolstered by broad enterprise adoption of its award-winning cloud storage system, the topic of a separate announcement issued today. The company, which was recently named a finalist for the Red Herring North America 100, also revealed that its PZOS 3.0 and Quicksilver controller were given finalist status for Best of Interop 2012.

News Facts

Panzura PZOS 3.0 represents a leap in the evolution of cloud storage and file sharing technologies, setting a new industry standard in cloud-integrated enterprise storage. Together with the Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controller and Panzura CloudFS file system components, the new version of the operating system delivers truly seamless global file sharing and collaboration along with built-in data protection and continuity features, in addition to other enterprise-ready NAS features, including:

• True Enterprise Class File Sharing and Project Collaboration: While a multitude of products claim to provide enterprises with cloud-integrated sharing and collaboration solutions, only Panzura delivers a globally distributed, integrated file system and unified namespace; dynamic file locking to prevent simultaneous write corruption; military-grade encryption with data center control over the key; as well as the enhanced features of PZOS 3.0, such as extended file system access control list (ACL) support, that allow for fine-grained management of collaborative data sharing by distributed teams.
• Accelerated Data Transfer Rates: Comprised of a 10GbE connector and 10GbE I/O option, Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controllers now move data to and from the cloud 10x faster than competing solutions, offering next-generation global deduplication for enhanced efficiency, data management and referencing. Improved inline local and global deduplication yields greater capacity reduction that is essential for both storage and network bandwidth optimization.
• Intelligent Caching for Optimized Cloud Integration: The Panzura Quicksilver solution optimizes cloud storage integration via its Intelligent Read Cache (IRC). The user-managed IRC stores recently accessed blocks and files on the local controller. Once full, least-recently-used (LRU) files are evicted from the cache (unless pinned to the IRC) to accommodate newer data. Regardless of whether a file is in the cache or not, the authoritative copy is always stored in the cloud; however, the IRC minimizes response times for accessing files it contains so that users remain insulated from any variations or loss of cloud connectivity or availability.
• Data Pinning: Pinning blocks and files to a controller's local cache ensures that specified data can be accessed at LAN speed with guaranteed availability. Pinning makes it possible for the IT department to specify data using flexible wildcard in-line policies that are kept in the IRC and never evicted, even if it is older than LRU data, until the pin is removed.
• User-managed Snapshots for Built-in Data Protection: In addition to the standard system snapshots stored within the global file system for maintaining consistency and system recoverability, PZOS 3.0 now provides up to 10,000 user-managed snapshots per controller. User-managed snapshots improve recovery times and productivity by enabling self-service file/version recoverability for end users without having to involve system administrators.
• Anywhere Disaster Recovery (DR): Data protection is further enhanced with inherent business continuity and DR with the Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controller recording the state of the metadata, data, deduplication tables and cache at the consistency point across the entire CloudFS file system and cloud. This state information can be used to reconstruct any controller at any location for rapid, low-cost DR.
• Enhanced Reporting: IT administrators can now take advantage of enhanced reporting features to monitor internal and cloud performance, leveraging extensive diagnostic data to identify and troubleshoot potential issues before they escalate, ensuring they are optimizing the user experience across all sites.
• Disk Layout: With the 3.0 release, Panzura optimized disk layout within each Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controller, parallelizing I/O across multiple RAID groups to improve data processing, protection and performance.
• Backup with Symantec or IBM: With the addition of support for Symantec NetBackup and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM), PZOS 3.0 integrates directly with two of the leading enterprise backup solutions, enabling enterprise customers to leverage low-cost, massively scalable cloud storage to back up their structured data, such as databases or Exchange data.

Supporting Quotes

"For enterprise customers, a viable cloud solution is one that directly enables high-value business objectives, namely improved costs, scale, availability, and truly global access to data, while fitting seamlessly into their existing infrastructure," said Steve Duplessie, Founder and Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "Panzura Global Cloud Storage System 3.0 brings these 'NetApp in the sky' type capabilities to the enterprise, combining the familiarity of enterprise-level NAS with the holy grail of anytime, anywhere file sharing."

"Many Enterprise NAS users considering the cloud are looking to tap into the benefits of cloud storage, yet without losing the functionality and control they are used to with local storage," said Mark Peters, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "Panzura Global Cloud Storage System 3.0 brings this exact combination of capabilities to enterprise users, combining familiar NAS-like features with global file sharing for collaboration; it integrates cloud storage so that it fits seamlessly into existing infrastructures -- an approach that should drive both more willingness to deploy and increased success for enterprises as they pursue cloud storage initiatives."

"We are pleased to deliver the third release of our Panzura operating system and upgraded Quicksilver controller for a truly enterprise-ready storage solution that fully realizes the promise and capabilities of the cloud and then takes it to the next level," said Randy Chou, CEO at Panzura. "With strong response and uptake from our enterprise customers, Panzura is now setting the standard for what enterprise cloud-integrated storage can and should be."

What Panzura Customers are Saying about PZOS 3.0

"We were looking to replace a file server and get off tape backups for Exchange and other servers. The Quicksilver controller integrated directly into our infrastructure, seamlessly presenting the cloud as a backup storage tier," said Rob Springer, Senior Vice President of Technology at Relativity Media. "In addition, the new features of 3.0 were tremendously valuable in meeting our business needs. We are already investigating other use cases for Panzura technology in our infrastructure to facilitate content sharing of 100s of TBs to support our long-term content and archival strategy."

"The Panzura Global Cloud Storage System will enable a high degree of data and file management capability across our organization and will offer file sharing benefits to our end users around the globe without need to use an expensive MPLS network while ensuring we have sufficient data security and performance in the cloud," said George Gindoyan, Executive Director of IT at Jazz Pharmaceuticals. "The improved read/write performance and ability to store recently accessed files on the local Quicksilver appliance will enable us to provide our globally distributed workforce with virtually unlimited storage capacity and file sharing capabilities in the cloud, but with the security and reliability of an onsite device."

"We rely heavily on virtual software demos to show customers the value of our product lifecycle management solution. These demo files are 10-20GB each, posing severe challenges to traditional data distribution methods," said Kyle Hetherington, Principal Systems Analyst at PTC. "With Panzura 3.0, we can leverage a fully-integrated global file system with a full NAS feature set to rapidly distribute large VMDK demo files to sites across the globe. Users are able to modify and save changes without creating conflicts or collisions, and the Panzura system automatically synchronizes these files across sites, just as if all users were in one data center sharing files on a local NetApp array. Now the distribution of software demos occurs in minutes instead of days."

Resources
A free webinar will be held on June 14, 2012, at 11 am PDT. Henry Baltazar, Senior Analyst at 451 Research, and a Panzura customer will examine market trends in cloud storage, explore the Panzura Global Cloud Storage System and offer a case study demonstrating the results of a real-world deployment. For more information and to register: http://www.panzura.com/events/

Pricing and Availability
Pricing for the Panzura Global Cloud Storage System starts at $22,999 per configuration.

PZOS 3.0 and the updated Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controllers are available for immediate purchase or as a subscription service. For more information:

• Visit Panzura at the Interop Expo in Las Vegas, May 8 and 9 in Booth 416 for a demo
• Request a price quote: http://www.panzura.com/contact

About Panzura
Panzura optimizes enterprise data storage management and distribution in the cloud, making cloud storage simple and secure. Panzura's revolutionary global cloud storage solution seamlessly combines the flexibility, performance, and productivity benefits of distributed storage with the manageability, security and cost benefits of centralized storage, overcoming fundamental "administrator vs. user" and "budget vs. performance" conflicts. With Panzura, data location no longer affects usage. Panzura: Cloud Storage Made Seamless. For more information, visit http://www.panzura.com/contact or email info@Panzura.com.

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Panzura, Quicksilver and PZOS are trademarks of Panzura, Inc. Other trade names mentioned herein are recognized to be the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.