iXsystems

iXsystems, Inc. is a privately owned American computer technology company based in San Jose, California that develops, sells and supports computing and storage products and services. With strong ties to the FreeBSD community, the company sponsors and develops the FreeBSD-based PC-BSD^[1] open source operating system and FreeNAS open source network-attached storage system. iXsystems is also a sponsor and attendee of open-source community events.

History

iXsystems was founded in 1991 as Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI, later BSDi) by Rick Adams and members of the University of California, Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG), including Keith Bostic, Kirk McKusick, Mike Karels, Bill Jolitz and Donn Seeley.^[2] In the year 2000, Berkeley Software Design, Inc. acquired enterprise server manufacturer Telenet System Solutions, Inc.,^[3][4] which was founded in 1996 and operated from the same San Jose, California office and manufacturing facility that iXsystems operates today. In 2001, BSDi sold its operating systems business to Wind River Systems and spun off its hardware business and iXtreme^[5] line of servers as iXsystems, Inc.^[6] In 2002, OffMyServer, Inc., owned by two BSDi employees, acquired iXsystems, Inc.^[7] and operated it as OffMyServer, Inc. until restoring the iXsystems name in 2005.

In 2006, iXsystems adopted the PC-BSD^[8] project and hired its founder, Kris Moore. In 2007, iXsystems acquired FreeBSD Mall, Inc., reuniting all the portions of the original BSDi that had been spun off to Wind River Systems. In 2009, iXsystems negotiated to continue the FreeNAS project when its developers decided to move it to Debian Linux. iXsystems introduced a comprehensive rewrite of FreeNAS in 2011 which now provides the platform for the "FreeNAS Mini" SMB NAS arrays and "TrueNAS" enterprise storage arrays. In August 2010, BSD author Dru Lavigne joined iXsystems and in July 2013, Jordan K. Hubbard,^[9] one of the founders of the FreeBSD project,^[10] joined iXsystems as CTO.^[11]

Products and services

Servers

iXsystems designs, sells and supports custom x86 servers for workgroups through data centers with a focus on support for the FreeBSD operating system. The company relies on partnerships with hardware vendors Intel, Supermicro, Western Digital and LSI Corporation combined with on-staff FreeBSD developers. All iXsystems servers are subjected to a three-day burn-in process to reduce returns and are available with Linux as an alternative operating system.

TrueNAS

On Aug 3, 2011, iXsystems introduced the TrueNAS^[12] line of enterprise storage arrays. TrueNAS is a network-attached storage (NAS) system and storage area network (SAN) device that supports the SMB, AFP, NFS, iSCSI, SSH, rsync and FTP/TFTP sharing protocols over Ethernet and Fibre Channel network fabrics. TrueNAS also supports vendor-certified protocols including VMware VAAI, Microsoft CSV, ODX, and VSS, and Veeam. A custom, tool-less enclosure provides TrueNAS High Availability using dual controllers, and four user-serviceable components: disks, power supplies, fans and the controllers themselves. TrueNAS uses the OpenZFS file system in hybrid and all-flash configurations up to 3.84 Petabytes in raw capacity.

FreeNAS Certified

The iXsystems FreeNAS Certified^[13] line of small and medium-sized enterprise storage arrays are designed to run the FreeNAS storage operating system and are available in 1U, 2U and 4U configurations.

FreeNAS Mini and Mini XL

The iXsystems FreeNAS Mini^[14] line of SOHO storage arrays are designed to run the FreeNAS storage operating system and are available in 4 bay and 8 bay configurations.

FreeNAS

On November 19, 2010, iXsystems introduced FreeNAS 8 Beta, its first released of the popular free and open-source software-defined storage project that it adopted and rewrote. FreeNAS is based on the on FreeBSD operating system and the OpenZFS file system.

References