Company:VDURA

VDURA

Formerly	Panasas (1999–2024)
Type	Private
Industry	Software-defined storage; HPC; AI infrastructure
Founded	1999 (as Panasas)
Founder	Garth Gibson
Key people	Ken Claffey (CEO)
Website	https://www.vdura.com

VDURA (formerly Panasas) is an American software-defined storage company that develops data infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). It is headquartered in San Jose, California, with additional offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Boulder, Colorado.

History

Panasas was founded in 1999 by computer scientist Garth Gibson, co-inventor of RAID and creator of the PanFS parallel file system. The company introduced its first parallel network-attached storage system in 2004.

On May 7, 2024, Panasas rebranded as VDURA, a name derived from "velocity" and "durability," marking its transition from proprietary hardware appliances to a software-defined, subscription-based model.

In 2025, the company announced updates to the VDURA Data Platform, including Version 11.2 with Kubernetes CSI integration, end-to-end encryption, and a premium support program. The release also previewed V-ScaleFlow, a tiering technology designed to move data between QLC flash and high-density HDDs.

Products and technology

VDURA develops the VDURA Data Platform (VDP), a modular software-defined storage system designed for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. The platform employs a microservices architecture and the VeLO (Velocity Layer Operations) metadata engine, which manages parallel performance at scale and provides key-value operations for billions of files.

The platform supports erasure coding, automated load balancing, and unified management across flash and disk media. It is designed for concurrent read/write performance and includes policy-driven tiering between high-performance flash and high-capacity hard disk drives.

• VDURA Data Platform v11.2 (2025): Introduced support for Kubernetes CSI integration, end-to-end encryption, and the "VDURACare Premier" support program; also previewed V-ScaleFlow, a tiering technology to optimize use of QLC flash and high-density HDDs.
• V5000 all-flash appliance (2025): An all-flash system optimized for AI/ML throughput with erasure-coded scalability and high IOPS performance.

VDURA markets its solutions for diverse data-intensive domains including life sciences, energy exploration, finance, government research, and media production, alongside AI training and simulation environments.

Partnerships and recognition

In April 2025, VDURA was included in the CRN Storage 100 list of software-defined storage vendors, noting the platform’s AI-oriented architecture and metadata engine.

In August 2025, VDURA announced a research partnership with New Mexico State University to explore integrating NIST-standard post-quantum cryptography into its data platform for GPU-accelerated workflows.

At ISC 2025, Goethe University Frankfurt discussed using VDURA’s platform alongside a large AMD GPU cluster for AI and scientific research workloads, reporting performance and scalability characteristics for 24×7 operation.

In September 2024, VDURA announced a strategic partnership with Jeskell Systems, aimed at enhancing IT modernization efforts across federal, public sector, and commercial clients.

VDURA also maintains collaborations with multiple technology partners in AI, data protection, HPC, and simulation, including AMD, ANSYS, Altair, Atempo, Autodesk, Cadence, and Agiga.

Events and industry presence

In March 2025, VDURA participated in NVIDIA GTC, showcasing real-world use cases such as Toyota’s use of large language models for traffic analysis and Valley Water’s application of AI for water-flow forecasting.

In June 2025, the company hosted the VDURA AI Data Challenge @ ISC 2025 in Hamburg, demonstrating its data infrastructure for AI and HPC workloads (Booth G21).

In July 2025, VDURA recapped AI demonstrations and webinars, emphasizing applications across transportation, environmental management, and scientific workloads.

In August 2025, VDURA sponsored the Monterey Data Conference (MDC), presenting updates to the V11 platform and noting a contract with a U.S. federal systems integrator.

In mid-2025, CEO Ken Claffey was named to Channel Insider’s list of "AI Leaders in the Channel".

Later in 2025, VDURA is scheduled to exhibit at several additional international conferences, including:

• **Supercomputing 2025 (SC25)** – St. Louis, Missouri (November 16–21, Booth 2033).
• **NVIDIA GTC, Washington, D.C.** – October 27–29, 2025.
• **CIUK 2025** – Manchester, UK (December 4–5).
• **DiRAC Day 2025** – Stoke-on-Trent, UK (December 11).

Notable events

At Supercomputing 2024 (SC24), VDURA participated in a promotional event featuring strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, highlighting data-at-scale performance messaging with high-capacity SSD media.