Kaminario, a cloud storage software company, announced three new offerings and a unified licensing framework. The announcement is aligned to the company’s vision of delivering Storage as a Service (STaaS) for business-critical data. These solutions present Kaminario customers with new alternatives for building application infrastructures. The company expects to achieve the simplicity and agility of public cloud with the control and performance of dedicated storage. Kaminario leverages its software composable storage technology to offer consumption-based acquisition models for its cloud-scale application provider customer base. This includes leading software as a service (SaaS), fintech, healthtech, eCommerce, and cloud service providers.
Enabling consumption-based hardware acquisition
Kaminario’s Storage Utility combines its existing consumption-based software subscription model with pay-as-you-go hardware acquisition. Kaminario runs on certified, industry standard hardware available as pre-integrated building blocks from strategic partner Tech Data. Under the storage utility model, the hardware expense is converted to a consumption-based monthly payment determined by actual storage consumed. Hardware usage metering is tied directly to Kaminario’s software usage with billing integrated into Kaminario Clarity’s analytics platform. Unlike a traditional lease, this acquisition can be treated as true operating expense (OPEX).
The Kaminario Storage Utility can be purchased through Tech Data’s Technology as a Service (TaaS) offering. The combination of consumption-based pricing, industry-standard hardware and Tech Data’s TaaS financing program makes Kaminario’s Utility highly economically efficient with all-inclusive baseline pricing of $100 per usable TB (terabyte) per month.
According to Dani Golan, CEO at Kaminario, “We continue to see how the public cloud is reshaping business. IT leaders’ have strategies for delivering storage infrastructure that meets the needs of business critical applications.”
Kaminario is focused on building Storage as a Service solutions that help de-risk the growth of our customers. We have storage solutions that bridge the world of cloud and dedicated infrastructure.”
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
Kaminario DRaaS offers customers a fully managed, cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) solution as a month-to-month expense based on protected capacity. Subscribers have the option of choosing from a list of Tier 4 datacentre locations for their DR site. Alternatively, subscribers can leverage an existing remote site they already operate. Data is replicated using Kaminario’s native replication utility or a third party solution, if the primary site is non-Kaminario storage. Kaminario and its managed service partners can support a range of service levels and recovery time objectives. At the same time, delivering the service as a true OPEX based subscription service.
Enabling workload mobility
Kaminario will offer the capability to implement Kaminario storage instances on major public cloud platforms. This includes AWS (Amazon Web Services), GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and Microsoft Azure. Kaminario VisionOS software running on public cloud services will deliver the full stack of data services available to on-premise resources. Kaminario’s native snapshot and replication utility can be used to move data from on-prem data centres to the cloud to support development, disaster recovery or cloud bursting use cases. Kaminario-Cloud instances will be managed within the same framework and software stack as on-premise implementations. Kaminario-Clarity will provide management and analytics utilities across all environments. Kaminario-Flex will provide orchestration and automation utilities across all environments.
Unified licensing scheme
Kaminario customers can choose to acquire infrastructure under any combination of acquisition models under a unified software licensing scheme. A customer can now purchase an enterprise-wide license for some amount of capacity. They can deploy storage resources on purchased hardware, on utility hardware, at a DR site or in the public cloud. As capacity requirements evolve over time and different environments scale up or down, Kaminario Clarity provides calculation of consumed capacity.
Kaminario’s STaaS platform is made possible by unique software composable storage architecture, coupled with advanced analytics, orchestration and automation capabilities. With its highly differentiated technology and business model, Kaminario has received recognition as a top performer relative to traditional enterprise storage array technologies. Gartner rated Kaminario in the top 3 products for all use cases in the 2018 Critical Capabilities Report for Solid State Arrays.
“The IT value chain is rapidly transforming into a services-oriented supply chain,” said John O’Shea, senior vice president, Global Lifecycle Management, Tech Data. “We partner with Kaminario to enable this transformation with traditional channel services like financing, logistics and distribution. Tech Data provides lifecycle management services such as integration, field service and support that are aligned to the as-a-service economy.”
Enterprise Times: What this means for business?
As businesses adopt a cloud-first model, they are encountering challenges deploying cloud strategies for business-critical application data. Kaminario’s focus on delivering STaaS solutions for business-critical data is possibly unique in the industry.
Kaminario delivers a Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) platform for business-critical applications hosted on and off premise. Its software composable architecture combined with analytics and automation allows customers to realise the flexibility of public cloud. At the same time, businesses still need the performance and control of dedicated infrastructure.
The boundaries between on-premise and public cloud infrastructures is blurring. Businesses are challenged with disruptive economics, constantly evolving business models and the constant need to keep an eye on revenues. The option for flexible, consumption-based licencing services will inevitably become more attractive commercial options.
