Origins and acquisition In 2005, Nexenta was founded by Alex Aizman and Dmitry Yusupov,
software developers and former executives at
computer network vendor Silverback (later acquired by
Brocade Communications Systems). Aizman and Yusupov previously worked together as the authors of the
open source iSCSI initiator software in the
Linux kernel. The company was created to support the
open source Nexenta OS project after
Sun Microsystems released the bulk of its
Solaris operating system under
free software licenses as
OpenSolaris. Nexenta OS was an operating system that integrated Sun's Solaris
kernel and core technologies with applications from the
Debian and
Ubuntu operating systems. Nexenta was acquired by
DataDirect Networks in May 2019.
Data storage The company's
data storage software was used at
Stanford University in 2012 and 2013. The field had previously been dominated by companies that sold
hardware storage
appliances. Nexenta intended to compete by creating a storage system that did not require specialized hardware. The company instead provides software that run on lower-cost
commodity computing hardware, a model later called
software-defined storage.
Partnerships and open source Much of Nexenta's business comes from partners that provide hardware and services alongside Nexenta software. The company's software is pre-installed on storage systems from vendors including
Supermicro,
Cisco, and
Dell. Nexenta continues to contribute to
free and open-source software used in its products. When
Oracle Corporation discontinued
OpenSolaris in 2010, the company became a founding member of the
Illumos open source project that replaced it. ==Products==