By Ken Claffey, CEO

You may have noticed that we’re making quite a few changes over here. Today, we’re thrilled to finally share what they’ve been building up to.

While we are proud of the heritage of the company and the foundation we have built as Panasas, we’re also making so much progress, allied to a more far-reaching vision and a different business model, that it feels right to rename the company to properly signify all this. So today, we are no longer Panasas; we are VDURA!

We chose VDURA because, simply put, data needs to be moved with great velocity and be highly durable. That is at the forefront of what we do every day and it’s at the heart of the commitment we make to our customers. This rebrand includes a transition to a software business model which will enable us to fast-track our vision of building a high-speed, highly reliable data platform for HPC and AI. This platform leverages our foundational parallel NAS technology (PanFS) and builds new capabilities delivering tangible value to our customers. And our approach here is going to be unique in our market.

There are two phases to this move to a SaaS model. Today, we announced that our software will be available through the Avnet Integrated Direct Connect program. In this model, customers will still get an integrated appliance that will be powered by our software. It is a priority for us that our customers can still get the same – indeed, enhanced – appliance ‘experience’ that they require (i.e., clearly defined SLAs in terms of performance, capacity, and support). This model has the benefit of giving our customers a much broader selection of hardware platforms to meet differing price and performance requirements, and they get to buy the hardware at our cost, which in turn saves them money.

Phase two will roll out later this year. We will announce a partnership with a major cloud provider to deliver our software via their cloud platform, enabling us to offer an on-prem, cloud-native, or hybrid cloud service which will deliver even more value to our customers than we already do.

Since I joined this company back in September, I knew that the potential for what is now, formerly, Panasas was unmatched. The company already had a robust history of offering a fast, reliable, frustration-free HPC storage solution, so this foundation has proven to be a natural springboard for the new software architecture innovation we are building that now positions VDURA as a leader in AI and HPC data infrastructure. We’re excited by this change and the opportunity to bring increased value to our customers. Some of these additional benefits include:

Choice: VDURA customers have the freedom to leverage managed software on a broad range of hardware platforms. Whether it’s flash-optimized servers, capacity-optimized enclosures, or cloud infrastructure, the choice is theirs.

Customization: The ability to select preferred hardware introduces a rare level of configurability. Customers can tailor their storage solutions to match specific workloads, optimizing performance, efficiency, and economics.

Cost-Savings: By purchasing directly from the hardware manufacturer (Avnet), VDURA customers save significantly on hardware costs. This newfound control over budgets and capacity empowers IT organizations to accomplish greater goals without increasing costs.

While you can find the full details of our rebranding and expanded offerings here, we wanted to officially welcome you to the next chapter of VDURA, where velocity meets durability.