Moonwalk Releases Free Starter Edition

Moonwalk Universal today took the wraps off a free version of its data management software, offering businesses a risk-free way of reaping the rewards of targeted and efficient data placement.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based data management and protection software vendor released version 12 its Moonwalk software along with a cloud-optimized Starter Edition that delivers most of the automatic data tiering and storage optimization functionality contained in the paid product. Among the few restrictions is a 25TB limit, said Michael Harvey, co-founder and vice president of Business Development at Moonwalk Universal.

Harvey and his group are wagering that Moonwalks’s non-disruptive approach to automated, cloud-aware storage optimization and the Starter Edition’s budget-friendly price point will resonate with enterprises struggling to manage their ever-growing and increasingly expensive stores of unstructured data.

Moonwalk features a low-impact, “disintermediated architecture” that dispenses with many of the components that are typically associated with data management platforms, allowing businesses to move data from primary storage and overworked network-attached storage (NAS) systems to more cost-effective cloud and object storage platforms without affecting the end-user experience, explained Harvey.

With competing solutions, “you’ve got to buy all of these bits and pieces, move your entire [data store] and spend a stack of cash,” he said. “We’re removing this barrier to entry; organizations can see the value.”

That value includes an up to 90 percent reduction in costly primary file storage while preserving namespace and client data flows, claims the company. Other perks include built-in disaster recovery and an architecture that provides practically unlimited scalability.

Moonwalk seamlessly integrates into an organization’s file system, Harvey assured. Its policy server, AdminCenter, resides outside the data flow and there are no database servers, indexes or middleware to maintain.

The solution’s policy engine enables storage administrators to migrate files based on user, size, age, location, project and several other factors. REST API (application programming interface) support and the platform’s extensible storage plugin architecture, enables further integration and customization.

Moonwalk 12 Starter Edition also offers access to the company’s user forum, where experts trade tips and insights. Product support is offered for a fee.

Moonwalk 12 can also serve as a “cloud onramp [right] out of the box,” Harvey said. “Everyone’s got a ton of data, they know they’re over spending managing it in situ.” The solution offers connectors for Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Bluemix and Dell EMC ECS supplementing its support for Windows Server, NetApp, Open Enterprise Server, Common Internet File System (CIFS) and Network File System (NFS) among several other popular platforms and protocols.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Enterprise Storage Forum. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.