Items Tagged: IoT

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Qumulo Core: Data-Aware Scale-Out NAS Software (Product Profile)

Let's face it: Today’s storage is dumb. Mostly it is a dumping ground for data. As we produce more data we simply buy more storage and fill it up. We don't know who is using what storage at a given point in time, which applications are hogging storage or have gone rogue, what and how much sensitive information is stored, moved or accessed by whom, and so on. Basically, we are blind to whatever is happening inside that storage array. On the other hand, storage should just work, users of storage should see it as an endless invisible resource, while the administrators of storage should be able to unlock the value of data itself through real-time analytical insight, not fighting fires just to keep storage running and provisioned.

Storage systems these days are often quoted in petabytes and will eventually move to exabytes and beyond. Businesses are being crushed under the weight of this data sprawl and a new tsunami of data is coming their way as the Internet of Things fully comes online in the next decade. How are administrators dealing with this ever increasing appetite to store more data? It is time for a radical new approach to building a storage system, one that is aware of the information stored within while dramatically reducing the time administrators spend managing the system.

Welcome to the new era of data aware storage. This could not have come at a better time. Storage growth, as we all know, is out of control. Granted the cost per GB keeps falling at about a 40% per year rate, but we keep growing capacity at about a 60% growth rate. This causes both the cost and capacity to keep increasing every year. While cost increase is certainly an issue, the bigger issue is manageability. And not knowing what we have buried in those mounds of data is a bigger issue. Instead of data being an asset, it is a dead weight that keeps getting heavier. If we didn’t do something about it, we would simply be overwhelmed, if we are not already.

The question we ask is why is it possible to develop data aware storage today when we couldn’t yesterday? The answer is simple: flash technology, virtualization, and the availability of “free” CPU cycles make it possible for us to build storage today that can do a lot of heavy lifting from the inside. While this was possible yesterday, if implemented, it would have slowed down the performance of primary storage to a point where it would be useless. So, in the past, we simply let it store data. But today, we can build in a lot of intelligence without impacting performance or quality of service. We call this new type of storage Data Aware Storage.

When implemented correctly, data aware storage can provide insights that were not possible yesterday. It would reduce risk for non-compliance. It would improve governance. It would automate many of the storage management processes that are manual today. It would provide insights into how well the storage is being utilized. It would identify if a dangerous situation was about to occur, either for compliance or capacity or performance or SLA. You get the point. Storage that is inherently smart and knows: what type of data it has, how it is growing, who is using it, who is abusing it, and so on.

In this profile, we dive deep into a new technology, called Qumulo Core, the industry’s first data-aware scale-out NAS platform. Qumulo Core promises to radically change the scale-out NAS product category by using built-in data awareness to massively scale a distributed file system, while at the same time radically reducing the time to administer a system than can hold billions of files. File systems in the past could not scale to this level because administrative tools would crush under the weight of the system.

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Converged IT Infrastructure's Place in the Internet of Things

All of the trends leading towards the world-wide Internet of Things (IoT) – ubiquitous, embedded computing, mobile, organically distributed nodes, and far-flung networks tying them together - are also coming in full force into the IT data center. These solutions are taking the form of converged and hyperconverged modules of IT infrastructure. Organizations adopting such solutions gain from a simpler building-block way to architect and deploy IT, and forward-thinking vendors now have a unique opportunity to profit from subscription services that while delivering superior customer insight and support, also help build a trusted advisor relationship that promises an ongoing “win-win” scenario for both the client and the vendor.

There are many direct (e.g. revenue impacting) and indirect (e.g. customer satisfaction) benefits we mention in this report, but the key enabler to this opportunity is in establishing an IoT scale data analysis capability. Specifically, by approaching converged and hyperconverged solutions as an IoT “appliance”, and harvesting low-level component data on utilization, health, configuration, performance, availability, faults, and other end point metrics across the full worldwide customer base deployment of appliances, an IoT vendor can then analyze the resulting stream of data with great profit for both the vendor and each individual client. Top-notch analytics can feed support, drive product management, assure sales/account control, inform marketing, and even provide a revenue opportunity directly (e.g. offering a gold level of service to the end customer). 

An IoT data stream from a large pool of appliances is almost literally the definition of “big data” – non-stop machine data at large scale with tremendous variety (even within a single converged solution stack) – and operating and maintaining such a big data solution requires a significant amount of data wrangling, data science and ongoing maintenance to stay current. Unfortunately this means IT vendors looking to position IoT oriented solutions may have to invest a large amount of cash, staff and resources into building out and supporting such analytics. For many vendors, especially those with a varied or complex convergence solution portfolio or established as a channel partner building them from third-party reference architectures, these big data costs can be prohibitive. However, failing to provide these services may result in large friction selling and supporting converged solutions to clients now expecting to manage IT infrastructure as appliances.

In this report, we’ll look at the convergence and hyperconvergence appliance trend, and the increasing customer expectations for such solutions. In particular we’ll see how IT appliances in the market need to be treated as complete, commoditized products as ubiquitous and with the same end user expectations as emerging household IoT solutions. In this context, we’ll look at Glassbeam’s unique B2B SaaS SCALAR that converged and hyperconverged IT appliance vendors can immediately adopt to provide an IoT machine data analytic solution. We’ll see how Glassbeam can help differentiate amongst competing solutions, build a trusted client relationship, better manage and support clients, and even provide additional direct revenue opportunities.