Storage startup offers a path to private cloud

ParaScale, a cloud-storage startup, says it has software that can pool a number of file servers much the same as NAS clustering schemes like F5's Acopia devices or EMC's Rainfinity software. But the company says it can do it more cheaply and on general-purpose hardware.

"Today, cloud storage means Amazon, Nirvanix, Google, Microsoft, maybe even Facebook, and it needs a large engineering team," said ParaScale CEO Sajai Krishnan. "We say, buy our software and put it on standard Linux servers--you can even re-use old servers as storage nodes--and you're a storage provider."

Krishnan maintains that enterprises should consider ParaScale-based cloud storage as an alternative to clustered NAS because a private cloud will be easier to manage and expand. He also said it ties in with other trends such as cloud computing and software as a service, and is resilient. Krishnan described ParaScale as the third generation of cloud-storage technology. He said the key to this new generation is the use of infrastructure technologies developed for Web 2.0, such as AJAX and WebDAV.

For more on startups and clouds:
- check out this InfoWorld.com article

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