DDN Object Storage usage grows to 200+ billion

WOS 360 2.0 offers a full suite of new options to expand use cases in enterprises, cloud, BYOD shared storage, deep archive, video streaming, and file sync and share offerings. WOS delivers:

· New lower cost capacity tier for long-term archive, offering deep archive for up to 30 percent lower cost than the platform’s performance tier;
· 20 percent increased storage efficiency using the updated Global Object Assure (GOA) erasure coding;
· New industry-leading ultra-high density enclosure that stores nearly 800 terabytes in a 4U array for deep archive;
· Expanded connectivity option that adds OpenStack Swift support to an already robust interface offering of S3, CIFS, NFS, GPFS, Lustre and native REST;
· Robust end-to-end security of the management layer, data in-flight and node-to-node security within the WOS ecosystem; and
· An easy turnkey appliance deployment model, which makes the WOS object storage platform an ideal solution for service providers, resale through the channel and deployment as a private cloud offering.

With more than 1 billion new objects under WOS management added per week, DDN object storage adoption is increasing rapidly as users seek network-efficient solutions for data sharing, alternatives to tape for long term archive, and lower cost storage tiers within NAS environments. To address the long-term archive use case, DDN has added both a lower cost storage tier as well as the option to perform continuous background data integrity checks within WOS to ensure data integrity is maintained throughout the long lifecycle of archive requirements.

DDN’s WOS 360 2.0 enables secure public and private cloud deployments, and delivers efficient data protection options while reducing storage administration and cost. In addition to expanding use cases such as enterprise, cloud and file sync and share, it is ideal for data-intensive environments within media and entertainment, research, life sciences and education.

“The challenge of managing, sharing and extracting value from rapidly growing, large scale, unstructured data is impacting IT organizations worldwide and is driving demand for intelligent, high density, cost effective storage deployments,” said Molly Rector, CMO, executive vice president product management and worldwide marketing, DDN. “We are committed to advancing the promise of object storage to enable organizations to build highly reliable, infinitely scalable, cost-efficient storage pools for all their unstructured data. And, with increased connectivity and additional lower cost configuration options, DDN has made it easier than ever to design and deploy optimized end-to-end storage solutions using WOS to meet these challenges.”

New Low Cost Capacity Node
The WOS capacity node enables customers to store and protect massive quantities of unstructured data within the smallest footprint and at the lowest cost per TB. It delivers industry-leading storage density, twice the density of competitive offerings, and provides 768 terabytes (TB) of raw capacity in just 4U of rack space. Preconfigured with 96 8TB drives and two 10Gb Ethernet ports, the WOS capacity node offers a new long-term tier to supplement the WOS 7000 performance tier. WOS 360 2.0 uniquely offers high-performance nodes and dense, high-capacity storage tier options for an ultra-efficient, cost effective object storage solution.

Turnkey Appliance
To best support DDN’s channel partners, the company has streamlined the WOS deployment process, making it turnkey to install. With a simple point and click graphical user interface (GUI), the administrator simply selects the specific WOS components and target systems on which to deploy. Once deployment options are specified, the installation process is fully automated and enables large and complex configurations to be deployed in minutes. Software updates to existing WOS clusters are also automated to further streamline system management and reduce ongoing storage administration for the customer.

OpenStack Swift API
The WOS 360 2.0 release expands access options to any storage environment with the addition of a native OpenStack Swift API. With DDN’s new Swift API, organizations using OpenStack are able to easily leverage the advanced data protection, scalability, performance, storage efficiency and geo-distribution capabilities available through DDN’s industry-leading WOS platform. The broad range of WOS interface options include: S3/Swift NFS/CIFS/SMB, GPFS, and native WOS REST extensions for private or hybrid cloud deployments.

Increased Storage Efficiency
As market adoption of object storage accelerates, customers are requiring solutions that deliver higher levels of data protection and storage efficiency without the excessive network bandwidth consumption found with most solutions in the market. WOS Global ObjectAssure™ (GOA), DDN’s second generation hierarchical erasure code is now 20 percent more storage efficient and delivers data protection across multiple sites with only 1.5x storage overhead. The improved efficiency translates directly to lower storage acquisition and network cost, improved space efficiency and reduced power requirements.

“Keeping up with the growth in unstructured data may be the single biggest challenge facing the data center over the next five years. Object storage is gaining traction because it was designed specifically for unstructured data and can handle that data on a massive scale,” said George Crump, chief steward, Storage Switzerland. “DDN is solidifying a leadership position with its latest WOS platform features that not only advance performance, scalability and geo-distribution capabilities, but also expand connectivity options to allow more environments such as OpenStack Swift to leverage its potential.”

In addition to unmatched density, enhanced data protection, and simplified installation, new WOS features include:
· Interface deployment flexibility. New software deployment options provide customers the flexibility to implement S3/Swift interfaces on discrete gateway servers or fully embedded implementations that run locally with the WOS software. Designed for customers who do not require the extreme performance or independent scalability of discrete gateway configurations, the embedded method simplifies deployment by co-locating both S3/Swift interfaces and WOS software on the same system or WOS 7000 performance appliance, eliminating the need for separate discrete gateway servers and cabling complexity.
· Performance enhancements for video streaming, content distribution and other large data transfer or high throughput use cases. Updates to WOS software components deliver a 90 percent reduction in latency and time to first byte of data for more predictable quality of service (QoS) for latency-sensitive applications.
· Enhanced security, with end-to end data protection extending from the client application layer with connection authentication, to a hardened management layer and SSL encrypted LAN/WAN traffic between WOS nodes to provide a secure storage environment that protects and keeps data private.
· Increased data protection and MTBF. The WOS object storage platform offers enhanced data protection with the implementation of a continuous data integrity check that systematically reads all objects and metadata to verify data integrity and increase the MTBF. The process automatically repairs corrupted objects to maintain the integrity of the data.
· Complete software defined data migration and management tiers data between an object storage platform and a high performance parallel file system. DDN’s WOS Bridge receives updates and offers an enhanced GUI that expands system management and data protection capabilities, including simplified and expanded data migration policies, deep performance monitoring, visualization of migration processes and system components, improved data protection and recovery of stub files and meta data via backup to WOS.