Innovation in Data Management Accelerating Neuroscience, Virtual Reality, and Early Cancer Diagnosis Using AI

A research company is using AI in the fight against cancer. An animation studio creating films and virtual reality (VR) amusement parks.

A team of scientists deepening understanding of the human brain. All struggled to manage massive amounts of unstructured data, until they turned to Seattle-based Igneous Systems, Inc.,  in Unstructured Data Management (UDM), and its as-a-service, high-performance data management solution.

Igneous’ cloud-native solution – consisting of its DataDiscover, DataProtect and DataFlow – delivers superior data visibility, efficient data protection and automated data movement to data-centric organizations like Paige.ai, regardless of where datasets reside. 

“At Paige.ai we are using AI to revolutionize the clinical diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Igneous is able to provide intelligent data management that enables us to analyze an immense volume of unstructured pathology data,” says Dr. Brandon Rothrock, senior AI scientist, Paige.ai. “We rely on Igneous’ expertise in unstructured data management to help us succeed with our mission.”

“No one’s fully managing unstructured data at scale today – especially machine generated datasets. IT and data owners lack the visibility and insight on how much data exists, where it’s located, how often it’s being used, and its true value,” says Kiran Bhageshpur, co-founder and CEO, Igneous. “We developed our UDM solution to help companies protect these assets, and make all file and object data accessible wherever it lives – getting it to the right place at the right time.” 

Igneous is the first to deliver the required capabilities of UDM at scale: continuous data visibility, search and classification; backup, archive and disaster recovery of all files and objects; and automated dataset movement based on data lifecycle requirements – via a single API-enabled solution.  

“We are unique in delivering all aspects of UDM in a single ‘as-a-Service’ solution, for all unstructured data,” says Christian Smith, VP of products, Igneous. “Our customers get the benefits of visibility, classification, analysis, protection and data mobility without having to rip and replace their existing storage investments. And our unprecedented performance and support for any NAS or object interface and private or public cloud service gives agility and choice back to our customers.”

Capable of delivering data scan-and-compare rates of over 419,000 files/second per job, data-movement rates of over 21,000 files/second per job, throughput starting at 1.2GB/second for a basic configuration, and scalable to hundreds of concurrent jobs to meet the needs of even largest enterprises, Igneous outpaces competitors in both the volume and handling performance of managed unstructured data. 

The solution includes:

• DataDiscover: Gives IT and data owners the shared intelligence needed to find the right datasets for processing and collaboration, contain data sprawl, and proactively manage system utilization and costs. Underpinned by the Igneous InfiniteIndex it provides customers with a unified and intelligent system of record for all file and object data.   

• DataProtect: Simplifies and automates data protection and archive as-a-service. Any file and object interface, any NAS system platform and support for any public cloud means teams can consolidate their data protection and archive without facing vendor lock-in.

• DataFlow: Customers already use Igneous for managing API-driven automated data protection workflows. DataFlow – in preview – extends this capability to any operation requiring intelligent data movement at scale, including machine learning pipelines, IoT data workflows and bioinformatics pipelines. DataFlow equips teams with self-serve and automated dataset movement for analysis, simulations and collaboration.

DataDiscover, DataProtect and DataFlow support all file and object protocols in their native format, across any on-premise or cloud location.

Customers share a few attributes. In many cases, accomplishing their company mission depends on high performance computing and deep learning. They rely on tens of petabytes of unstructured, machine-generated data. And their lean IT teams look to technology to assist with extracting value with that overwhelming amount of data.

Kris Winkler, director of IT operations at Seattle, WA-based Allen Institute for Sale Science, stated “Our aim is to answer some of the biggest questions in bioscience and help accelerate research around the world. Partners like Igneous allow our scientists to focus on innovation and understanding what makes us human.”