Quantum Integrating Object Storage Technology From Amplidata …

Quantum Corp. will expand on its position in managing big data content by integrating optimized object storage technology into new tiered storage and management offerings.

These new offerings will enable both big data content and analytics customers to overcome current challenges in maintaining and protecting their data on disk over the long term.

Big Data Applications Outpace
Traditional Disk Architecture Capabilities
Petabyte-sized information stores are increasingly viewed as a key source of business advantage or mission value – for example, by manufacturers leveraging historical customer purchase data to develop new products or by genomics researchers who know that future life-saving discoveries might depend on data collected today. Big data customers therefore want to keep all this data forever in a way that ensures its integrity and is most cost-effective. However, traditional disk architectures can’t meet the long-term availability, accessibility or affordability requirements associated with these data assets.

For example:

• As the density of data per disk, per storage channel and per storage system grows, the risk of data outage and resulting negative business impact increases.
• As content archives grow to the petabyte level and beyond, integration of new processor or disk technologies to achieve greater price-performance or scale requires a planned outage or ‘forklift upgrade.’
• These problems impose operational and management costs that increase as data grows.   

Providing a Better Solution Drawing on its expertise in big data management and long-term retention, Quantum will address the shortcomings of traditional disk architectures by integrating optimized object storage technology from Amplidata with Quantum’s policy-based tiering and data management software in a family of new disk solutions.

"Many of the world’s largest content owners – in government, media and entertainment, energy and life sciences – rely on Quantum’s StorNext software and appliances for tiering and long-term management of big data content," said Jon Gacek, president and CEO of Quantum. "Incorporating the unique capabilities of this new technology into a broader set of big data solutions is a natural extension of our long-standing leadership in providing customers with storage technology that delivers unmatched value and scalability, as well as the performance and management capabilities they need across the data lifecycle."

These new disk solutions will enable customers to improve the availability and accessibility of long-term content while also making the management of this content easier and cost-effective:

• Amplidata’s underlying technology includes dispersed data algorithms that provide 100 percent data accessibility over the extended content lifecycle. This ability to deliver continuous access to content even when disks fail, when entire sites have outages, or when customers want to upgrade to newer, denser or more powerful technology results in cost savings.
• Because the algorithms offer a form of built-in data reduction, the new solutions will be more cost-effective than the distributed file replication approach that has arisen based on concepts developed to support very large data volumes on the Internet.
• By integrating the technology into broader tiered storage solutions, Quantum will enable customers to manage and protect content across a variety of big data applications (both content and analytics) and across the full lifecycle of the information.
• The new solutions will offer dual value, as: 1) a tier behind the company’s existing offerings for streaming data in the big data content market and 2) packaged and certified with other applications to provide a complete managed solution in big data analytics environments.

Quantum plans to introduce the first of its new disk solutions later this year and also intends to offer a portfolio of cloud services based on these solutions.

"Today’s announcement reflects Quantum’s continued focus on combining innovative technologies in optimized storage solutions that help customers easily and cost-effectively transition their data management and protection strategies to drive greater business value," said Janae Stow Lee, SVP, Filesystem and Archive, Quantum.