Open core storage vendor Nexenta recently announced the final release of the Nexenta Core Platform 3.0 (NCP) and a joint technology partnership with Supermicro, a server technology company.  NCP combines Ubuntu userland, Solaris features like ZFS, and an OpenSolaris kernel.  No changes were made between the third release candidate (which is based on build 134+ of OpenSolaris) and the final release.  Developers also announced the future plans for NCP and Illumos.

Analysts say storage now comprises 42% of all IT spending, making it the largest piece of most tech companies' budgets.  Features like deduplication can slow the aggressive growth of data in the world's storage systems, but not all deduplication packages are created equal.  Nexenta's deduplication has both primary and post-processing deduplication.  NCP also has support for virtual networking through Crossbow, and over 13k packages are available in the NCP's repositories. 

                                                           

Now that the OpenSolaris project is presumed to be dead (moving into Solaris with a less open model), and the Illumos project will indeed be a fork, Nexenta has planned for a shift from OpenSolaris to Illumos by the time they release NCP 3.9.  Nexenta's Garrett D'Amore is the leader of the Illumos project, so the company should have no problem understanding the OS inside and out.  NCP 4.0 should build on 3.9 and will move to a more modern version of Ubuntu or Debian.  Currently, NCP uses 8.04 Hardy Heron.  

The results from today's partnership announcement means that Nexenta and Supermicro will sell a pre-certified combination of Supermicro's 3U Super Storage Bridge Bay (SBB) solution with NexentaStor pre-installed on it.  

Nexenta Core Platform is licensed under the CDDL and GPL.