While there are still those out there in cyberspace who are leery of storing anything in the Cloud, most users are now feeling more secure with the added layers of security now in play. Having said that, it is important to understand that the best storage for Microsoft machines may not be the best for Macs, if they even are compatible. Even though iOS is said to be the safer of the two operating systems, less prone to hacks as it were, you don't want to leave yourself vulnerable so it's important to understand how Cloud storage works before choosing the right storage for you.

Advice for Mac Newbies

If this is your first Mac computer, you might not know that there are some very significant differences between the Windows and iOS platforms. For those who aren't familiar with the Apple operating system, check out sites like Mach Machines which offer comprehensive articles on Apple computers and devices. Once you familiarize yourself with Mac, it's time to look for Cloud storage which gives you the amount of space you need and the levels of security you are most comfortable with.

Portworx, the best cloud native storage solution for Kubernetes, today announced the availability of PX-Enterprise 1.4, the most significant new release to-date of its comprehensive solution for running stateful containers in production. Updates in 1.4 include 3DSnap, the container industry's first application consistent snapshot solution for complex Kubernetes applications, as well as a brand new graphical user interface (GUI) for PX-Enterprise optimized for multi-cloud environments. These new capabilities enable customers to store and protect containerized applications, including their mission critical data from a single platform, and were developed in collaboration with Portworx's large and growing customer base, including 15 of the Fortune Global 1000.

Unitrends announced today the release of a new solution targeted at VMware administrators - VM Backup Essentials (vBE). vBE converges enterprise-grade virtual backup software, ransomware detection, and fully integrated cloud storage options into a powerful, easy-to-use product that is aggressively priced at $105 per socket per year. 

As VMware Administrators scan the market for backup solutions, they're faced with a barrage of offerings that only add complexity and cost as these solutions are not built to meet their specific needs. With vBE, they can turn to a solution fit for the enterprise, but simplified and priced specifically for the VMware Admin. With a focus on protecting the modern, highly virtualized datacenter against the latest downtime threats, including ransomware, vBE rejuvenates both the innovation and superior customer support that the VMware administrator deserves.

YI Technology believes that the very best imaging and sensing technology should be easy and accessible to everyone. From world-class innovation to numerous best-selling products, YI knows that great hardware is only possible when paired with great software and infrastructure. Integration with Azure provides data residency within our customers' geographical-regions and enterprise-grade cloud service for YI's rich product portfolio, including Kami, YI's upcoming initiative for the smart home.

Nexenta (@Nexenta), the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS), today launched NexentaCloud, a new product family of cloud native storage solutions. Designed and built as an organic extension of Nexenta's award-winning Open SDS solution, the new family of solutions allows user to extend the numerous benefits of Nexenta's solution onto the cloud. The first product to be announced is NexentaCloud available in AWS Marketplace.

NexentaCloud for Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows enterprises to run their core business applications, which utilize file and block storage native to AWS, while fully integrating with on premises solutions. Offering enterprise-class features such as snapshots, cloning, thin provisioning and data compression, NexentaCloud for AWS delivers a comprehensive data storage solution that supports business-critical functions including business continuity and self-service test/development.

Zadara Storage, a global provider of enterprise-class Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) based in Irvine, Calif., and MEGAZONE Corporation, a Korean cloud-specialized IT company, today announced a strategic alliance. The collaboration between the two companies was designed to meet customers' needs for sophisticated, high-performance, high-capacity enterprise-class cloud storage solutions. Zadara is an award-winning, worldwide vendor of enterprise STaaS, providing high performance, highly available block, file and object storage with predictable Quality of Service (QoS). Zadara is an Advanced Technology Partner in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN), and MEGAZONE is an APN Premier Consulting Partner.

The Zadara Storage Cloud and software-defined VPSA Storage Arrays deliver elastic, multi-tenant enterprise SAN, NAS and object storage technology for peta-scale primary and secondary storage. With isolated resources, exceptional data security, management control and predictable performance, VPSA Storage Arrays meet the most stringent Service Level Agreements (SLAs), even in cloud deployments. Providing a flexible and cost-effective storage infrastructure for enterprises, small to medium-sized businesses and start-ups, VPSAs also are available as fully-managed On-Premises as-a-Service (OPaaS).

Moonwalk Universal, a specialist in large-scale data management solutions, today announced certification for Cloudian HyperStore.

Cloudian HyperStore lets users grow to hundreds of petabytes on-premises simply by adding nodes and leveraging the proven interoperability of the industry's only 100% native S3 API. Whether for on-premises storage, hybrid cloud, or multi-cloud storage services, Cloudian HyperStore saves time, saves cost, and puts users in control.

With the latest release, Moonwalk version 12.3 brings file control and automation to enterprise storage infrastructure and intelligently moves file content to the appropriate location - on-premise object stores, offsite storage or cloud services.

Grazed from Kaminario

Kaminario, a leading cloud storage software company, today announced it is entering the cloud service provider market with the availability of Kaminario Cloud Fabric, a new software-defined storage offering. Cloud Fabric leverages the same composable data platform behind Kaminario's all-flash storage appliance, the Kaminario K2. Kaminario's composable data platform incorporates the VisionOS software operating platform and the Clarity analytics suite. Cloud Fabric delivers software-defined agility with the proven technology capability and enterprise-class features that earned Kaminario K2 the highest ranking in three out of five use cases compared to 19 all-flash arrays evaluated in Gartner's 2017 Critical Capabilities Report.

The software-defined datacenter (SDDC) is a key enabler to delivering next-generation cloud services.  While a small group of hyper scale service providers have pioneered the SDDC concept with their own proprietary engineering efforts, the level of technology investment required is not practical for the vast majority of enterprise or cloud service provider IT organizations.  Kaminario Cloud Fabric provides a path for cloud service providers to embrace the SDDC paradigm without developing their own proprietary data management software stack.

Grazed from UKCloud

UKCloud, the easy to adopt, easy to use and easy to leave assured cloud services company announces that it is offering its public sector and healthcare customers Cloud Storage or Disaster Recovery to the Cloud services completely free for three months. Open to both existing and new customers, the promotion applies to all orders for new workloads placed by 31 March 2018.

"With many of our customers facing budgetary challenges over the remainder of this financial year, we wanted to do all that we could to assist their transition to the cloud," said Simon Hansford, CEO of UKCloud. "Not only does this promotion offer excellent value, but our multi-cloud platform with flexible contractual arrangements means that public sector organisations can migrate to the cloud quickly and realise the tremendous costs savings of cloud computing without fear of lock-in."

SoftNAS, Inc., a cloud data platform company and leading software-defined NAS provider for the cloud, announced SoftNAS Cloud Essentials version 3.7, optimized for Veeam Availability Suite, is available this month. SoftNAS also announced the achievement of Veeam Ready Archive status, verifying performance for full and synthetic full cloud-backup jobs using SoftNAS Cloud Essentials. SoftNAS and Veeam customers now have access to cost-effective multi-cloud storage options, while simultaneously improving RTPO (recovery time and point objectives) for data archival, backup and storage jobs. This partnership underscores SoftNAS' innovation as a truly cloud-native, 100% software-defined cloud data platform for enterprise control of any data, any cloud, anywhere.

Enterprises continue to struggle with managing vast amounts of data, including backups. Research conducted by The Taneja Group, found that 41 percent of planned public cloud workloads target backups. Cloud backup is one of the fastest growing technologies being adopted. According to Gartner's Hype Cycle for Storage Technology, 2017, "backup of data generated natively in public cloud is an emerging requirement as cloud providers only offer infrastructure high availability and disaster recovery, but are not responsible for application or user data loss."