Employee Spotlight: Q&A with Russ Neufeld, Chief Cloud Officer at Nasuni

Marketing Intern Emma Mulligan delves into the various backgrounds, stories, and roles of key individuals across Nasuni’s employee base. As she navigates her internship, Emma shares insights of her discoveries with Nasuni’s readers, offering a glimpse into the faces behind the operation. These monthly interviews will showcase the employees’ journeys and their experiences at Nasuni.

Q: Thanks for meeting with me today! To begin, what initially drew you to Nasuni?

A: I knew many people here, including the two founders, as I had worked with them both before. Nasuni is the third company I’ve worked for with Andres Rodriguez (founder and CTO). The company had started in 2009 and at the time, was still quite small, so I was excited to join them. I was interested in the idea of another storage company, but honestly it was the opportunity to work with the people that was most exciting. Great teams can build great things, and I wanted to be a part of that.

Q: Talking to people around the office, many note that what makes Nasuni, Nasuni, are the people. Pivoting to your role, you spent six years as a consulting software developer at Nasuni before becoming Chief Cloud Officer. How did that experience prepare you for your current role?

A: Being involved in the company early on, writing tons of code, and assisting in many technical and architectural decisions gave me a great foundation for understanding our product and technology. Having that kind of background is hugely beneficial when transitioning into a managerial role. That said, there’s a whole aspect to leadership that you don’t get from software development, and for that I’m grateful to be a parent. Kids aren’t always easy, but raising them teaches you patience, how to be a better listener, and how to make decisions while still incorporating everyone’s input. I draw on my technical background and these types of soft-skills constantly, and I’d like to think that’s what makes me good at my job these days.

Q: I like that comparison! You and your team are a fundamental part of creating the Nasuni product. What are some common challenges your team encounters, and how do you typically resolve them?

A: There’s a famous quote from AWS’s CTO Werner Vogels: “Everything fails all the time.” That needs to be a main tenet in all your designs. Our group handles services that require 100% uptime for customers, so we invest heavily in redundancy and robust error-handling to ensure smooth functionality in the face of a variety of failures. For example, we’ve developed contingency plans to switch operations to alternative hosting sites should issues arise in a region. Over the years, while our core functionalities have solidified, our focus remains on refining error scenarios to maintain service uptime.

Q: Nasuni is known for its innovative and forward-thinking approach. How has the ongoing evolution of technology enabled Nasuni to enhance its products over time?

A: When we started, the cloud was still a new concept, and many companies hesitated to store their data there. The available cloud technologies were limited. However, customer confidence in platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud has grown significantly over the years due to their reliability and expanding service offerings. These platforms now offer diverse technologies such as advanced databases, messaging systems, and robust infrastructure for high availability and redundancy. We’ve capitalized on these advancements over the past 15 years to scale up our storage portfolio and introduce features like our unique Global File Lock ® (GFL), built on specialized database services pioneered by AWS. Leveraging these foundational technologies has allowed us to innovate and lead in our market.

Q: In a way, it sounds like you’re blending technical expertise with creativity?

A: Absolutely. The range of available technologies today is unprecedented. They operate globally and offer capabilities like redundancy and failover previously unimaginable with traditional systems. It’s a thrilling time to be integrating these technologies into groundbreaking solutions.

Q: Nasuni is a very high-growth company, averaging 30% ARR growth rate. How do you foresee Nasuni evolving to meet the increasing demand?

A: My group typically focuses on cloud-based technologies. Our core product is the Nasuni File Data Platform, which traditionally interacts like a Windows file server. It appears as a letter drive on a Windows machine, where users can store files across the network. This interaction is accomplished using protocols like CIFS or SMB. We also support the Unix-based protocol called NFS for similar network file storage. These traditional methods of interacting with our storage appliance are our bread and butter. However, as more companies and applications move to the cloud, there will be more applications looking to interact with files using cloud-native protocols like AWS S3 or Azure Blob Storage. Our goal is to give clients and applications the ability to store and interact with their data in Nasuni through whatever protocol makes sense for their workload, and to be able to do that on a global scale.

Despite this shift, our appliances still store all your files in the cloud. We’re not trying to follow trends; we aim to anticipate and lead where customer file usage is going. We see an increasing move towards cloud-based workloads. Therefore, we aim to be cloud-first so that customers can benefit from the latest technologies. While we continue to support traditional file access methods like CIFS and NFS, we’re also enhancing our cloud capabilities to offer the best of both worlds.

Q: The future of cloud-based technologies is so exciting! When you aren’t busy crafting behind the keyboard, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?

My son and I just completed our first Pan-Mass Challenge, a 186-mile ride over two days from Sturbridge to Provincetown, MA. The event is a giant fundraiser for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. We were 2 of about 6,800 riders. It was great to train with my 17-year-old son, Brooks, over the last few months, and it was great to tea in the ride. We had 47 people from Nasuni contribute to our fundraising goal. It was amazing to have such great support from everyone.

Throughout my internship, I’ve gained a comprehensive understanding of Nasuni’s product features and capabilities. However, it wasn’t until my conversation with Russ that I truly appreciated the endless hours of problem-solving and creativity involved in its continuous evolution. Russ broke down the complex technicalities of the cloud, making the insider process clear and understandable, providing knowledge I can leverage in my marketing career. It’s the hard work and dedication from Russ and his team that makes Nasuni a leader in the market. I am grateful for the opportunity to sit down with him and learn more about the face behind the product.