Nexenta Systems
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer data storage and backup software |
| Predecessor | Nexenta Systems, Inc. |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Founder | Alex Aizman, Dmitry Yusupov |
| Fate | Acquired by DataDirect Networks |
| Headquarters | San Jose , United States |
Key people | Alex Aizman, Dmitry Yusupov |
| Products | NexentaStor, NexentaCloud, NexentaFusion, NexentaEdge |
| Owner | DataDirect Networks |
| Parent | DataDirect Networks |
Nexenta by DDN, Inc., operating as a subsidiary of DataDirect Networks, concentrates on computer data storage and backup software solutions. Based in San Jose, California, the company’s offerings include products such as NexentaStor, NexentaCloud, NexentaFusion, and NexentaEdge. Originally established in 2005 under the name Nexenta Systems, Inc., the firm specializes in software-defined storage technologies.
Founding and acquisition
Nexenta was created in 2005 by Alex Aizman and Dmitry Yusupov, both former leaders at Silverback—a company later acquired by Brocade Communications Systems. The enterprise was launched to support the open source initiative known as Nexenta OS. Prior to founding Nexenta, Aizman and Yusupov developed an open source iSCSI initiator that was incorporated into the Linux kernel.
The Nexenta OS platform integrated Sun Microsystems' Solaris kernel and foundational components with applications from the Debian and Ubuntu distributions, capitalizing on Sun’s decision to release Solaris as OpenSolaris under open source licenses.
In May 2019, Nexenta became part of DataDirect Networks, broadening DDN’s capabilities in software-defined storage and 5G infrastructure markets.
Storage technology
In 2012 and 2013, Stanford University implemented Nexenta's data storage software. While the industry was largely dominated by proprietary hardware storage appliances, Nexenta introduced a solution that runs on cost-effective commodity hardware, eliminating the need for specialized devices. This model, now recognized as software-defined storage, allowed Nexenta to challenge traditional hardware-centric competitors.
Collaborations and open source contributions
A notable share of Nexenta's income is generated through collaborations with hardware manufacturers and service providers. Its software comes preloaded on storage systems from companies like Supermicro, Cisco, and Dell. Additionally, Nexenta actively supports free and open-source software projects crucial to its product suite. Following Oracle’s discontinuation of OpenSolaris in 2010, Nexenta played a key role as a founding contributor to the Illumos open-source project that succeeded it.
Products
The leading product from Nexenta is NexentaStor, designed for network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) environments. Built upon Nexenta OS and utilizing the Illumos operating system, NexentaStor operates on commodity hardware to form virtualized storage pools combining multiple hard drives and SSDs. It supports various file systems along with block-level storage accessible through protocols such as Network File System (NFS), CIFS, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel. Key features include online snapshots, data replication capabilities, and RSF-1 clustering technology to ensure high availability within storage infrastructures.