Software storage company SoftNAS announced upgrades to its SoftNAS Cloud for VMware (VMW) storage management offering, enabling companies to manage data storage in both on-premise and virtualized environments.

With SoftNAS cloud, VMware customers can manage their primary and secondary storage for both private clouds and service providers, while utilizing hybrid clouds with vCloud Hybrid Services (vCHS) for real-time backup, disaster recovery and business continuity purposes, according the company. SoftNAS has also certified VMware’s vSphere Data Protection Advanced product (VDP), allowing VMware admins to perform data backups, deduplication and replication of important data both locally and to the cloud more efficiently.

“In the cloud, ease of use and flexibility trumps complexity. It doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated to reap the benefits of powerful, enterprise-grade storage in the cloud or on premise,” said Rick Braddy, CEO and founder of SoftNAS, in a statement. “This latest offering puts the power of software-defined storage in the hands of VMware administrators everywhere, finally giving admins the freedom to leverage the richness of VMware’s many platforms and tools and transform VMware itself into a powerful storage platform.”

SoftNAS Cloud for VMware currently supports all VMware-compatible storage media and network hardware, so VMware users don’t have to upgrade their current installations. The software is compatible with all private, public and hybrid cloud platforms. Several of the new features included in SoftNAS Cloud for VMware include a VDP Backup Server, vCloud Hybrid Service Real-Time Backup and Disaster Recovery and VMware Cloud Gateway access. Users also will be able to access the software’s Large-Scale NFS Server to manage their file server applications and a NAS Filer to protect important data and ensure 99.999 percent availability for VMware hosts and HA clusters, according to the press release.

SoftNAS Cloud for VMware is available now starting at $495 per month or $4,995 per year for up to 20TB, with SoftNAS Cloud/Enterprise for VMware ranging from $995 per month or $9,995 per year for up to 16PB of storage. Interested customers can see the SoftNAS software in action during VMworld 2014 in San Francisco later this month.