SoftNAS Cloud® Enterprise edition is a software-defined, full-featured enterprise cloud NAS filer for primary data using either block, object or both types of storage. SoftNAS Cloud Enterprise enables existing applications to securely migrate to the cloud without re-engineering and with dedicated and predictably high performance. With enterprise-class NAS features like: high-availability, in-line deduplication, compression, thin-provisioning, snapshots and rollbacks, replication, cloning, encryption (at-rest and in-transit), LDAP and Active Directory integration, and support for NFS, CIFS/SMB, iSCSI or AFP storage protocols, SoftNAS Cloud Enterprise protects mission-critical and primary, active/hot data. SoftNAS Cloud Enterprise offers the broadest range of storage options in terms of price vs. performance and backend storage selection, on-demand at petabyte scale across the AWS and Azure Marketplaces or on-premises.
SoftNAS Cloud® Enterprise supports the following platforms:
- Cloud computing platforms such as Amazon EC2® and Microsoft® Azure™
- On-premise Computing Infrastructure such as VMware vSphere®.
Architecture and Technology
SoftNAS Cloud® Enterprise runs as a Linux®-based, 64-bit CentOS redistribution guest OS treated as a VM in a virtual server environment. In many use cases, storage devices are attached to the physical hardware layer, then presented to SoftNAS Cloud® as a VM running Linux.
SoftNAS Cloud® Enterprise operates on an industry-standard Linux platform, and uses a derivative of the Zettabyte File System® (ZFS), an open-source project originally released on OpenSolaris® by Sun Microsystems, Inc. This makes SoftNAS Cloud® able to leverage many ZFS features and add layers of functionality for NAS solutions in virtual computing and cloud computing.
An Apache webserver provides robust, secure access along with Secure Shell® (SSH). Storage is accessible via TCP/IP protocols including NFS v3, NFS v4, SMB/CIFS (Microsoft® Windows File Shares), and iSCSI.
SoftNAS Cloud® Enterprise is packaged with a primary administration interface called SoftNAS StorageCenter™, which provides commercial-grade storage administration and management functionalities for businesses of all sizes. 
Cloud Computing:
SoftNAS Cloud® Enterprise provides the highly-available network storage backbone needed for business-critical cloud applications in the following environments:
Premise-Based Computing:
SoftNAS Cloud® Enterprise installs from a download to act as a virtual server appliance. Run as many instances of SoftNAS Cloud® VM as are needed in any of the following environments:
SoftNAS Cloud®, SoftNAS StorageCenter™, SnapReplicate™, and SNAP HA™ are trademarks of SoftNAS Inc. All other trademarks referred to in this guide are owned by their respective companies.