Likewise Releases Open Source Software For File Sharing Among Linux, Mac, Unix and Windows

BELLEVUE, Wash., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Likewise announced today that it is releasing a high-performance, Windows-compatible file server, Likewise-CIFS. It is designed for independent software vendors and large organizations that require access to Linux, Unix, and Mac servers from Windows computers.

Likewise-CIFS is available at their website and in Likewise Open 5.3 under GPLv2 licensing terms. Likewise will also license Likewise-CIFS under commercial licensing terms that allow original equipment manufacturers to embed Likewise-CIFS in a variety of network attached storage devices, including network appliances and clustered storage solutions.

Likewise-CIFS supports both the SMB1 and SMB2 versions of the Server Message Block protocol. It is designed to be a high-performance, highly-scalable protocol stack. Its modular and extensible driver architecture lets OEMs, such as storage vendors, extend their systems with a scalable solution for sharing files.

"Likewise-CIFS represents an expansion of our Windows-compatible distributed systems framework that we've built for Linux, Unix, and Mac systems," said Krishna Ganugapati, vice president of engineering at Likewise. "Our customers, especially those with NAS solutions, enthusiastically encouraged us to develop a modern, high-performance Windows-compatible file server that is available with commercial support options. Likewise-CIFS is the realization of this market demand."

Deni Connor, an industry analyst and the founder of Storage Strategies Now, said, "We believe storage technology vendors will be very interested in this multi-platform file server software. It is available with full support and a commercial license, which makes it easy to integrate with their proprietary code."Next week, Likewise senior software engineer Gerald Carter will be speaking about Likewise-CIFS in a session at the 2009 Storage Developer Conference in Santa Clara.