Panzura CloudFS - BYOL
Global collaboration on large design files has become faster, more secure, and reliably governed
What is our primary use case?
Panzura CloudFS is primarily used for consolidating unstructured data, enabling real-time collaboration across sites, and consolidating legacy SAN and NAS storage into a single cloud-backed file system with deduplication and compression that reduce the overall data footprint.
It enables distributed teams to work on CAD and other large projects without latency and is also used for AI and ML-ready data platforms that leverage decades of institutional knowledge by AI. Panzura CloudFS uses FIPS 140-3 encryption security standards and employs file-level geo-fencing to enforce compliance across jurisdictions. It does have cloud dependency and migration complexity, along with a cost model that is beneficial.
My team uses Panzura CloudFS in a real-world scenario where an architecture firm collaborates on a mega project and teams need to work on the same files. File version conflicts cause delays when teams are not properly synchronized. Panzura CloudFS operates across all offices, backed by AWS S3 storage. When engineers in New York open a CAD file, Panzura CloudFS locks it globally, preventing anyone else from overwriting it. When they save changes, updates instantly synchronize to our Mumbai and London sites, enabling the London team to immediately continue working on the same file without waiting for transfers. Collaboration time is cut by approximately fifty percent since no one waits for file transfers, exemplifying its effectiveness in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry.
Regarding my main use case, Panzura CloudFS is primarily used for global collaboration on large files. It has global file locking that prevents version conflicts, enables data center monetization, and facilitates cost reductions by replacing SAN and NAS with cloud-backed file systems. It offers ransomware protection and disaster recovery with built-in anomaly detection that alerts on suspicious activity. It simplifies compliance with strict data regulations, and FIPS 140-3 encryption ensures strong security. Panzura CloudFS is used when organizations need secure, scalable, and collaborative access to unstructured data across multiple sites.
What is most valuable?
Panzura CloudFS includes Master Snapshot, which is a great feature because it allows for multi-protocol access. With Panzura Nexus CloudFS, it integrates directly with Microsoft 365 Copilot and prepares AI and ML workloads without reformatting or migration. It offers operational simplicity with a single pane of glass for searching and monitoring the entire file network and reduces metadata overhead with adaptive snapshot retention for scalability. Master Snapshot prevents global file locking conflicts and showcases multiple features.
Master Snapshot helps my team by providing a point-in-time, immutable copy of the entire file system. It captures the state of all files and metadata at once across every location and is stored securely in the cloud. This helps teams collaborate on large files by allowing them to roll back to clean versions if something goes wrong. It prevents accidental overwrites or corruption from impacting the whole project. If ransomware encrypts files, the team can restore from the last Master Snapshot in a minute, providing a sixty-second recovery point objective that minimizes data loss. Every office worldwide benefits from having the same data sets since snapshots are immutable and serve as reliable records for compliance checks, allowing teams to access historical versions of files without needing manual backups.
Additional features include the global namespace that provides a single unified view, caching and performance edge, and multi-cloud flexibility that allows enterprises to avoid vendor lock-in and choose the best cloud for their needs. Panzura CloudFS works with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or any private cloud, and that flexibility is a key advanced feature.
Panzura CloudFS has positively impacted my organization by reducing IT costs and consolidating multiple SAN and NAS systems into one cloud platform. It shrinks storage needs by up to seventy to eighty percent through deduplication and compression, allowing for easier compliance reporting with detailed audit trails. Providing S3 access makes data directly usable for analytics or any AI pipelines, which unlocks predictive modeling and generative designs. Organizations can roll back to clean versions in a minute without downtime or data loss. Global file locking eliminates version conflicts, enabling teams in different cities or countries to work simultaneously on the same file without waiting for transfers.
My team saves up to fifty percent in time while working on CAD, videos, or files across multiple sites since they no longer wait for file transfers or deal with version conflicts. Our cost savings are around sixty to eighty percent due to deduplication and compression that reduce unstructured data footprints, directly lowering cloud storage costs. Productivity improvements stem from global file locking and AI capabilities that prepare project data for analytics. Global construction firms gain speed, cost efficiency, and resilience.
What needs improvement?
Improvements for Panzura CloudFS can be challenging, as the product is very powerful, but performance at scale sometimes requires tuning. Some organizations report latency spikes when handling extremely large datasets with high concurrency. Improvements in real-time sync speed are required. Stronger support for multi-cloud or hybrid deployments would reduce vendor lock-in, and enhanced security could include expanded zero-trust access controls. Enhancing real-time sync speeds across continents and built-in metadata tagging for smarter queries would also be beneficial.
Additionally, while Panzura CloudFS is optimized for office and edge clients, more native mobile apps or lightweight remote access options would facilitate secure collaboration for field teams. Automatic file tagging or classification would expedite searching across millions of files.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my current field for more than nine years.
What other advice do I have?
Panzura CloudFS shines when you need to secure global collaboration on large files with resilience against ransomware for AI. Treat it not just as storage but as a strategic data platform that can transform how teams work together.
Panzura CloudFS is a strategic platform, not just for storage. It is most valuable when treated as a collaboration and data governance platform and not just a storage solution. Organizations that embrace this strategic view tend to see the biggest gains in productivity, resiliency, and future readiness.
I rate this product an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Global file collaboration has improved data access but still needs simpler setup and management
What is our primary use case?
Panzura CloudFS is primarily used for file access across multiple office locations, such as headquarters and sub-sites, to enable access between these locations. We have a team that sometimes works with the same workflow where file sharing is needed. Panzura CloudFS provides a global file system that allows users from different locations to work with the same data set, which is the main use case for our organization.
It makes data management and collaboration between teams easier. Panzura CloudFS has a file locking feature, which we use actively. We have a team in different locations using Panzura CloudFS who want to share their data and work simultaneously on the same projects without duplicating data. This is the best way for us to accomplish this.
What is most valuable?
The main feature of Panzura CloudFS is the global file system architecture, which is the biggest advantage and reduces our dependency on traditional NAS infrastructure. The cloud-based storage model definitely helps to simplify our data management. File locking and synchronization capability are some of the features we utilize.
Panzura CloudFS has positively impacted our organization by ensuring we are not duplicating data sets. In the past, we had to update data in one location and then move that data, which caused duplication. Additionally, when users were updating files, they were not in sync, so they had older versions. We had to plan custom scripts to make this work. Now that issue is resolved. With Panzura CloudFS, we can simply sync files from different locations.
Panzura CloudFS has definitely reduced the number of distributed file repositories we maintain. It has also improved file accessibility and increased collaboration between different geographies, such as the US and Europe. The simplified data management and backup process are additional great features.
What needs improvement?
There are some features in Panzura CloudFS that are not up to standard. The initial deployment takes a long time, and the administration of these deployments requires specialized people. Performance can be dependent on network connectivity and cache resizing, which are not standardized and could be improved.
The deployment process and initial setup configuration of Panzura CloudFS is complex and requires a specialized person with knowledge in this area. The cloud integration options that Panzura CloudFS provides could be improved, particularly with native services and security tools.
There are some technical improvements that Panzura CloudFS needs to implement. There are also opportunities for them to enhance the user and admin experience. The management interface could be more modern as it looks very old. Customer support is generally responsive, but issue resolution takes a lot of time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Panzura CloudFS for over a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Panzura CloudFS is a very stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Panzura CloudFS is great in scalability, and scalability is one of the features I would recommend. As our data volumes and user base are expanding, the platform is able to accommodate both without many significant architectural changes.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support for Panzura CloudFS could be improved. The support is good, but issue resolution takes a lot of time, which is an area for improvement.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using an on-premises solution first, and when we moved to the cloud, we tried Panzura CloudFS and it actually solved most of our problems.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup cost us more in terms of licensing and cloud consumption, networking, and infrastructure deployment. The initial costing was high.
What was our ROI?
We have definitely seen a positive return on investment with Panzura CloudFS. The ROI includes improved data accessibility. Fewer file version conflicts occur since you avoid conflicts, use less space, and store more data. Simplified administration across multiple systems is another benefit. The ability to scale with storage capacity using cloud resources rather than on-premises infrastructure can save significantly from an ROI perspective.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
A positive aspect was that Panzura CloudFS was able to scale according to our storage requirements without any hardware refresh.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Panzura CloudFS, I evaluated other options such as Azure File Sync, which is based on Azure, Azure NetApp Files, which we also tried, and Isilon, which was an on-premises solution.
What other advice do I have?
The advice I would give to others looking into using Panzura CloudFS is to plan your architecture, connectivity, and cache requirements before deployment. Conduct a proof of concept before deploying with the real workload you need to validate performance expectations and avoid surprises. I would rate this product a 6 out of 10.
Centralized cloud files have unified global collaboration and support real-time project workflows
What is our primary use case?
I use Panzura CloudFS in a joint project collaboration to provide a centralized file system across multiple project locations while leveraging cloud storage as our primary data repository.
This helps our distributed team access, share, and collaborate on files in real-time without maintaining separate storage silos at each site. Panzura CloudFS has improved the collaboration between geographically dispersed teams, highlighting my main use case and how it fits into my workflow.
How has it helped my organization?
In our project, we have seen that Panzura CloudFS has positively impacted our organization by reducing storage management complexity, improving file accessibility, and strengthening our disaster recovery capabilities.
Data synchronization happens seamlessly with Panzura CloudFS, allowing employees to collaborate more effectively regardless of location, which supports how it improved disaster recovery.
What is most valuable?
The best features Panzura CloudFS offers in my experience include global file system architecture, real-time synchronization across locations, cloud-native storage integration, intelligent file locking, and version control.
The features of intelligent file locking and version control are especially valuable in my day-to-day work. With Panzura CloudFS, all project teams work from a single global file system, ensuring users always access the latest version of the file.
Simplified multi-office collaboration, reduced storage duplication, strong data protection, and resilience are additional aspects of the features that Panzura CloudFS provides.
What needs improvement?
Panzura CloudFS can be improved with more detailed analytics and reporting capabilities, which may enhance the visibility into storage optimization metrics.
Simplified administration for smaller IT teams would be helpful for small project management. These are the improvements I believe Panzura CloudFS needs.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Panzura CloudFS is very highly stable in my environment in terms of accuracy and reliability.
Panzura CloudFS is definitely stable in my experience.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is one of Panzura CloudFS's strongest attributes. As storage requirements grow, cloud capacity can be expanded without significant infrastructure changes, efficiently handling increasing workloads and supporting organizational growth without compromising performance.
How are customer service and support?
I am very happy with Panzura CloudFS's customer support because the team was responsive, knowledgeable, and professional, displaying strong technical expertise.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
The team used a different solution before Panzura CloudFS based on their decision when I worked with the project team.
I did not have the opportunity to evaluate other options before choosing Panzura CloudFS because the team head decided on that solution.
How was the initial setup?
Since I am a team member, I asked my team about the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Panzura CloudFS. They thought that its value delivered through centralized collaboration, cloud scalability, and operational efficiency justified the cost, and management procedures are straightforward once deployed.
What other advice do I have?
Panzura CloudFS maintains a single source of truth for our project files while leveraging cloud scalability, which made it stand out for me. For governance and security, I believe Panzura CloudFS is particularly effective for enterprise settings, centralizing file management, providing cloud scalability, supporting business continuity, and improving collaboration across geographically distributed locations.
Organizations with multiple projects or offices, remote teams, or large-scale file collaboration requirements should seriously consider Panzura CloudFS. It is particularly effective for teams seeking centralized file management, cloud scalability, and improved collaboration across geographically distributed locations.
Panzura CloudFS is an excellent enterprise file system solution that simplifies collaboration, enhances data accessibility, and delivers reliable cloud-backed storage management across multiple locations. I rate Panzura CloudFS a 10 out of 10.
Global teamwork has become seamless as our files stay unified, secure, and easily recoverable
What is our primary use case?
I used Panzura CloudFS for about five years in my current role. My main use case for Panzura CloudFS was that our organization had team members situated around the world, making it an excellent platform to collaborate with no override, no duplication, and the ability to work in one space where there were no replicates of documents.
It was an effective way to work with the team around the world without having multiple documents across emails and other communication channels.
How has it helped my organization?
Panzura CloudFS has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to create processes and sustain them with everything in one place, so everyone is collaborative and processes are easy to follow because everything is secure with no duplicates.
Staff can utilize it without having to look in multiple areas, as it is just in the cloud.
I have noticed specific outcomes with Panzura CloudFS, such as increased productivity since my team was scattered all over the world and worked in different time zones. We could all work at different times and stayed on top of our deadlines, which was key.
What is most valuable?
The best features Panzura CloudFS offers include having everything in one place, no duplication, and my biggest feature is recovery. If I feel like I have lost something, I can recover it with ease, which is one of my favorite features because I can be clumsy at times.
The file recovery feature helped me specifically because there were times where I had to restore things, and its recovery feature was amazing for recovering information I needed, which I thought was lost until I learned about the feature and would always rely on it if there was a mistake on my end.
All of the features stand out for me, including locking a file, global access for the organization, the security piece, and the privacy piece. All were amazing, and everything was in one place and secure, which are things I would highlight.
I think Panzura CloudFS is a really good program that keeps everything in one place, and I would recommend it for other organizations that want to establish collaborative teamwork amongst teams worldwide, ensuring everything is secure, private, and recoverable.
What needs improvement?
I would say that improving user interface and accessibility is really key. Accessibility goes hand in hand with usability, creating multiple ways for people to use the platform, which Panzura CloudFS does a good job of, but I would recommend an audit to see if assistive technology works well with it and ensuring compliance is met.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my field for about ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Panzura CloudFS is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Panzura CloudFS's scalability is excellent.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support for Panzura CloudFS is very helpful, whether through email or phone communication, and it has been quite good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used old outdated systems such as emails and shared files, which did not work, so I would say we were very old school until we brought Panzura CloudFS into our environment.
How was the initial setup?
My team did not have any issues with pricing, setup cost, and licensing, though that was handled by another team member.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with Panzura CloudFS in terms of money saved, time saved, and fewer employees needed. Before integrating it into our processes, everything was all over the place, involving emails, Teams, Slack, and things being lost and duplicated. The introduction allowed everyone to collaborate much better, saving time and confusion while making staff more productive and collaborative.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I cannot recall evaluating other options before choosing Panzura CloudFS, but it stood out with all the functionalities and features we were looking for, being the best fit cost-wise and easy to integrate.
What other advice do I have?
We collaborated in Panzura CloudFS by doing a lot of things from design to implementation for products and keeping track within Panzura CloudFS, having documents to work off and editing each other's sections, designs, and things with ease, which allowed my team members to implement that without hardships. It was a really good program in that regard.
I would advise others looking into using Panzura CloudFS to consider it if they want a solution that integrates collaborative teamwork, has everything in one place, scales up, saves time, retains information, allows recovery, and ensures privacy and security. I would rate this product an eight out of ten.
Great Data Consolidation, But High Cost and Support Dependency
High availability and security deliver peace of mind and empower data consolidation
What is our primary use case?
Panzura CloudFS is our primary solution for file servers and resiliency for our file shares. We have been demoing Panzura's Symphony tool, which has demonstrated many capabilities for automating and moving data. Beyond Symphony, we consolidated every file share and NAS in the organization over to Panzura CloudFS. It has done a great job with that.
What is most valuable?
The best feature for us is the high availability and the security peace of mind. That has been an excellent feature for us over the past few years and has really helped us out of several tight spots.
What needs improvement?
They have just addressed one of the features we were hoping for, which is colder storage tiers. They have that availability now. The only other thing beyond that is that their first-level support hasn't always been perfect. Once we have gotten up to the expert tiers, it has been great. I would suggest more training for their first-level support.
For how long have I used the solution?
We are coming up on just about three years of using this solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There is some maintenance required. Occasionally, we restart a filer if there are any issues, but it is fairly lightweight as far as maintenance goes.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is great, I would rate it nine out of ten.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have had everything from old-school self-hosted SMB file shares to NetApp. We had another solution prior as well. We have had several different offerings for our file shares. None of them do quite what Panzura CloudFS does. There are extra features with Panzura CloudFS, and it has more power than any of those tools offer.
How was the initial setup?
Though I didn't own the implementation, I was present at the time. The time to value was pretty quick. We made the cutover fast, and the value from there was immediate.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented as a customer without external assistance.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment. We have moved from several more expensive storage mediums into Panzura CloudFS.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I manage the costs, and while we haven't had to reevaluate the pricing since our first contract isn't up, I believe they are in line with the market, especially for the quality of product you get with Panzura CloudFS.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate this solution a nine overall.
Ensures seamless business continuity and rapid file access across multiple locations
What is our primary use case?
We needed redundancy, and we needed to be able to recover, so it was both file storage and business continuity reasons.
How has it helped my organization?
Panzura CloudF has helped increase my network resilience. We've had regional power outages, and we have been able to continue working with files at other locations. There's been no interruption, no downtime for the other locations, so the business continuity side of it is stellar.
I would have a very high opinion of the solution's ability to provide granular snapshots. We do have situations where people accidentally delete or move files, and being able to roll those back quickly with just a right-click is a great time saver and an advantage.
What is most valuable?
The best features are the synchronization between locations, the speed at which it presents those files to the users, and phenomenal support.
My impressions of Panzura CloudFS's ability to consolidate data are very high because they have been aggressively evolving the product, listening to their customers, and making those changes where possible. They have done an outstanding job of listening to customers and solving their problems as the product evolved.
In the five years that I've been using Panzura CloudFS, they have actually addressed issues with performance, stability, and recoverability. They are constantly evolving that product in a good way.
What needs improvement?
I don't have anything to complain about regarding Panzura CloudFS. They're developing an AI side that's supposed to be around by this fall. They're a step ahead of the game on that as well, and I really don't have any deficiencies I can point out. However, the pricing could be more competitive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I'd have to give the stability a ten out of ten. We've had power outages and VMs crash, and we've had to rebuild those.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is definitely a ten out of ten.
A little over 400 employees work with Panzura CloudFS, and all of them interact with it at some point, those are nationwide, multiple locations.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the technical support a nine because nobody is perfect.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I don't have any firsthand experience with the other products or vendors on the market other than looking at them. I've talked to peer review folks and other engineering firms, and there were good and bad experiences with everything as you would expect, but Panzura CloudFS is the market leader in that space as far as the engineering firms are concerned for a good reason, and they do a great job.
How was the initial setup?
We have Panzura CloudFS deployed at locations using VMware. We've deployed it as images locally, and we're switching to Hyper-V because of that whole debacle with VMware's pricing.
Regarding the deployment of Panzura CloudFS, it was very simple. I've racked servers for decades now, and I've rolled stuff out and had to move data around for new equipment, and it was very easy to point it at our existing data and just pull it right in.
The deployment took approximately a week, and I made the whole switch over on a weekend. We had pre-copied the stuff off. I came in on a Saturday morning and left here at 2:00 in the afternoon. Everything was completely flipped over in 8 to 10 hours.
The solution requires maintenance from my end. Whenever they release a new version, I schedule it with them during off hours, and they go ahead and upgrade them, and I double-check everything, usually it's done in six or seven hours.
What about the implementation team?
The solution was purchased through a partner purchase.
What was our ROI?
It's hard to calculate the return on investment regarding productivity, but after doing it the old-fashioned way with servers, we've seen at least an 80% return on that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is a little bit pricey. I would rate the cost of Panzura CloudFS an eight out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to other users simply because they have the ability to solve problems, and after you do it, you'll understand why.
I would rate Panzura CloudFS overall a nine out of ten. More competitive pricing would make the solution a ten out of ten.
Improved productivity and network resilience enable seamless growth across multiple offices
What is our primary use case?
My use case for Panzura CloudFS involves having multiple offices in the United States, and we use it to share all our file structure between the offices.
How has it helped my organization?
Panzura CloudFS has helped to increase the network resilience by 100%. It helped us with our growth, and we have had double-digit growth for years now, and they were able to help us achieve that.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Panzura CloudFS is that it just works; it provides enterprise-level application across all our offices and simplifies administration. Since the product works so well, we don't have to have a lot of issues or downtime. It helps us to be more efficient and more productive.
We've been able to increase network resilience. We've had double-digit growth for years now, and Panzura helped us achieve that.
What needs improvement?
In terms of improvements for Panzura CloudFS, I would like to see the Edge feature. I would love for that feature to be usable for our company and our employees.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Panzura CloudFS since 2016, so nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Panzura CloudFS is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Panzura CloudFS is very good.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted the support. The quality of support from Panzura CloudFS is good; the speed is good, and they have knowledgeable staff.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was long with the amount of data we have. It was not difficult, it was just lengthy due to the amount of data that had to be sent to the cloud.
For the deployment of Panzura CloudFS, the number of people required really depends on the size of the company. We had two people working on our deployment.
Panzura CloudFS takes care of all the maintenance. We just schedule the outage with them.
What was our ROI?
We saw the benefits of Panzura CloudFS immediately. Our remote offices were able to share files immediately after the product went live.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing of Panzura CloudFS is relevant, and their pricing is comparable to other competitors. What you get is fair pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have tested out alternatives to Panzura CloudFS in my career, however, Panzura CloudFS is the number one product we used.
What other advice do I have?
I would say to a colleague who prefers using big-name software companies that Panzura CloudFS is a solid solution. It's a solution that works, it's priced appropriately, and their support is good.
On a scale from one to ten, I rate Panzura CloudFS a ten.
Offers seamless collaboration and file access across locations
What is our primary use case?
My use case for the Panzura CloudFS solution is especially for cloud storage.
How has it helped my organization?
We can add S3 storage as well as any cloud storage without any limitation. We get file collaboration since we have different locations with people in the same team who need to upload their logs or program files into a single shared folder. This is a very good product. The file locking mechanism and collaboration features are so good. Especially for snapshots and backups, they do not consume a lot of memory, and with this file collaboration, we can access any location in any folder using different filer names or access points. For example, I have devices in India, APAC, Australia, Russia, and the USA. When I move to Russia, I can change access from India to the Russian access point. If I go to the EMEA location, I can change it. If I'm going to Spain, I can change to the Spain access point while still accessing my shared folder sitting in India. They also avoid network hops. For instance, if I'm in India but need to access data in China or Spain, it simplifies the process and enhances collaboration.
It provides a single storage solution. It is easy to manage storage. We can connect to a Panzura filer in a collaborative way using the ring method. The consolidation capabilities are excellent, especially in terms of connectivity topology.
For collaboration, Panzura CloudFS is the best, though it is a little costly. If you prefer lower prices, there are alternatives such as NetApp or EMC, but for collaboration, Panzura CloudFS excels. Furthermore, the quick restore feature is also commendable in case files are corrupted or deleted. Vendor support can assist in restoring files efficiently even when large amounts of data, such as 100 GB, are involved.
The impact of Panzura CloudFS on our security posture is good. The vulnerability and security teams prepare reports, and we collaborate on fixes for reported vulnerabilities, with Panzura providing patch releases.
What is most valuable?
The best features of the Panzura CloudFS solution include collaboration, which is my top priority and top feature. No one else provides this as effectively. Even though NetApp is a big player in file storage, they do not offer this level of collaboration. Additionally, you can change any access point. Everything is simplified, meaning any user with basic storage knowledge can work on Panzura CloudFS due to its user-friendly menu.
We have seen improvements such as data compression, which is really good. It effectively manages hot data. Files accessed frequently are stored and synchronized across different locations. For instance, if an application server is hosted in the USA, users in Canada can access files swiftly without latency because hot data is synchronized to their local systems.
It also offers good auditing capabilities. In case of file deletions or permission changes, they can monitor everything, such as who did what, from which IP address, which system they connected to, and at what time. They can grab all the data.
What needs improvement?
It is a little costly.
The NFS service needs development. While Windows and SMB are effective, the NFS service shows some lag, making it a pain point for our many clients who use Linux devices.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the Panzura CloudFS solution for the last five years, and I have been supporting it for the last three years; I am a manager of those products. Their service is so good. We have not had any bad experiences with them.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Panzura CloudFS an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For scalability, I would rate it a nine out of ten.
I cannot provide the exact number of users accessing the solution. However, I have noted that Panzura's metadata cache works efficiently from the backend EC server. Thus, unlimited users can access the system without issues. Even 1,000 users can connect simultaneously unless there is a problem with the internal network.
How are customer service and support?
Their technical support is excellent.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment of Panzura CloudFS is not complex. It uses an OVA file format, and although it requires careful configuration following vendor instructions, anyone with basic storage knowledge can manage administrative tasks easily after a few days of familiarization.
Implementation of Panzura CloudFS is quick; it sets up very easily and does not take long.
The implementation does not take more than half an hour with the setup of computer resources and installation of the OS; adding new devices to a ring does take more time, as metadata synchronization occurs based on the network speed.
Panzura CloudFS can be deployed in both cloud and on-premises environments without limitations. Two to three years ago, there was a discussion about compatibility with seven different S3 storage providers. I know AWS and Google are compatible, though I'm unsure about how Azure works.
It can be deployed hybrid, which I heard is possible, and we are certain that cloud deployment works fine; so far, we have not faced any latency issues, and on-premises deployment also operates smoothly.
What was our ROI?
Panzura CloudFS saves us a significant amount of time frequently. We utilize huge storage capacity here.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I cannot detail how much Panzura CloudFS has reduced our data storage costs since it varies per customer and environment. Overall, it is quite costly compared to NetApp and similar solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I cannot compare Panzura CloudFS directly with other vendors accurately; while NetApp has more features for NFS service, especially in security, Panzura excels in collaboration and its cloud file service; however, its NFS service lags in various aspects, with room for improvement.
I would recommend Panzura CloudFS to other users for its collaboration features and access points, but I advise caution regarding NFS service issues that require improvement, especially for Unix-based critical applications. However, for teams using Windows machines, my experience has been greatly positive.
Overall, I would rate Panzura CloudFS an eight out of ten.
Streamlines data management with cloud-based storage and works seamlessly without any outages
What is our primary use case?
My use cases for Panzura CloudFS include syncing it as file storage for primarily lab data. We are a biotech life science company, and we are using it as a target to write data that comes off lab machines, accessible from user workstations if needed, and syncing it to the cloud due to our sizable cloud presence.
How has it helped my organization?
I appreciate that Panzura CloudFS provides granular snapshots. We are using versioning and snapshotting. There have been times when somebody deleted something and we had to go back and grab it. It has worked well.
Panzura CloudFS has helped increase my organization's network resilience because we have copies of data cached locally and everything in an object store in Azure, which we've replicated to a DR cloud site that we test every year. It has been performing as needed during our failover testing.
We realized the benefits of Panzura CloudFS after a couple of months. It was really helpful because of the ease. Once we got everything set up and all our data migrated over, it was pretty seamless without any outages for the whole two years.
It has been easy to manage after everything was set up; it just goes, and with the auditing plug-in, we've had to pull some auditing reports, but that's been pretty easy as well. Managing my data using Panzura CloudFS is easy.
We got the Detect and Rescue feature on our last renewal, and while we've gotten some alerts, we haven't delved into a lot of the functionality yet.
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate most about Panzura CloudFS is that it really solves the problem we had when we moved all our server workloads to Azure, reducing our on-prem data center footprint sizably. We don't have to maintain a huge on-prem storage array, which is nice. It just works, and we haven't had any issues this whole time. A couple of times, maybe random questions have popped up, but their support has been very good to work with. They engage quickly, so that has been good.
What needs improvement?
One area for improvement regarding Panzura CloudFS is moving away from on-prem or local Active Directory. We're exploring a transition to Azure AD or Entra ID, aiming to keep the product functional without heavy reliance on the local Active Directory.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Panzura CloudFS for almost two years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In the two years we've had Panzura CloudFS, we haven't experienced any outages, showing that it's been stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe Panzura CloudFS is scalable; we have made a couple of changes to enhance scalability that have worked. We considered expanding to multiple filers in other buildings, and we found it easy to achieve scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I would give the support for Panzura CloudFS a ten out of ten because they are responsive and helpful. We wish many other companies we deal with were as good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I haven't used any alternatives to Panzura CloudFS. We looked at a few other products before our decision, but those were mostly demos and not used live in production.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment of Panzura CloudFS was easy. We worked with professional services who helped map it out and deploy and configure a handful of our filers while a migration team handled moving all the data, making it a straightforward process.
The full deployment of Panzura CloudFS took about 3 to 4 weeks from when we started setting up the filers to when all the data was migrated over. Slow transfer speeds affected the migration time.
After the deployment, Panzura CloudFS does not require any extensive maintenance. We've done a couple of upgrades as routine maintenance and a little reconfiguration after about a year for better resiliency, which was more of a business need than a product change.
What about the implementation team?
For the deployment of Panzura CloudFS, we needed two or three people on our end.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's competitive. I don't know what competitors are charging, but they have been very transparent, which is nice, and we've negotiated to avoid percentage increases.
What other advice do I have?
To a colleague who prefers big-name software companies, I would say that Panzura CloudFS just works. I feel there's only one name that jumps out in their space. Many people don't fully understand the space they operate in, so it would be beneficial to just take a look and give it a try.
My overall rating for Panzura CloudFS is a nine out of ten.