Distributed storage vendor Talon Storage Solutions, Inc. scored a coup by gaining Microsoft’s endorsement of its CloudFast cloud-based file-caching software as a joint offering in the Azure Marketplace with Microsoft’s StorSimple hybrid cloud storage appliance.

CloudFast centralizes file-based data in a global network with features like caching, file locking, “differencing” and transport optimization to provide features and performance that are similar to that of local file shares.

For example, when a user in Japan opens a file, that file is locked from write access by others users on the network, even if they’re half a world away. “If the data is in San Francisco, our job is to make sure the people in Colombia don’t know that,” said Charles Foley, a Talon senior vice president.

Differencing is a performance feature that analyzes documents for changes before sending them over a network. The technology is particularly useful when applied to large files that are shared by several users. “If you open a 300 megabyte file in which 10 megabytes have changed, we can difference out only the data that’s changed,” Foley said. “Only 10 megabytes comes over the network.”

Deployment in the Azure cloud enables organizations to centralize document storage to get the benefits of auditing, backup and administrative visibility while making shared documents available securely on a global basis. Microsoft will support and administer Talon’s software through StorSimple, a hybrid on-premise/cloud storage offering that eliminates much of the overhead of managing such environments.

Under the terms of the Microsoft agreement, Azure users can select, configure, deploy, and administer both the Talon and Microsoft components seamlessly through a single resource manager. Usage is billed through the Azure cloud and customers can count their CloudFast spending toward their total Azure spending for discount purposes.

CloudFast pricing is five cents per gigabyte per month, but StorSimple users pay a discounted price of three cents for gigabyte per month. “Our average customer saves around 70% by going to a central file system,” Foley said.

Creative Commons photo via Pixabay.