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IDC Perspective: Why Today’s Unstructured Data Needs a Modern, Flexible Software Solution

CMMA Blog

Over the last few years, enterprises have seen a dramatic growth in the amount of data generated, and the pace of this growth has been accelerating. Not only is the amount of data growing, but the type of the data is changing as well. A decade ago, most of the data generated came from databases, often referred to as ‘structured’ data. 

Now, a majority of data is coming from ‘unstructured’ sources, such as video data, files, rich imaging, and artificial intelligence applications. These new types of applications require a modern, high-performance storage platform to manage the data and to extract maximum business value from it. These new storage platforms will need to leverage the latest technologies, such as containers and NVMe storage, for the highest performance, simplicity, and flexibility both on-premises and in the cloud and will need to be much easier to operate. Previous generations of storage systems are cumbersome and complex—never intended to run today’s unstructured data applications– and often require advanced IT skills to manage the system.

Here’s a video from IDC to hear their perspective on the challenges of managing unstructured data and the need for a new type of storage solution. At Quantum, we’re listening to our customers and ready to meet the new era of data and help solve those challenges with modern, flexible software solutions purpose built for unstructured data.

The post IDC Perspective: Why Today’s Unstructured Data Needs a Modern, Flexible Software Solution appeared first on Quantum Blog .

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Announcing the H4000 with StorNext 7 – Fast, Collaborative Production Just Got Easier

Block Storage

If the new pace of production and sheer sprawl of content and unstructured data that you need to manage, organize, and protect seems overwhelming – you’ll be glad to know that big help–in a small package–is on the way. 

The Full Capabilities of StorNext Platform – Now Fits in Only 2U 

Today, we’re pleased to announce the newest, fastest StorNext ever on a converged appliance from Quantum. Together, StorNext 7 on the new H4000 appliance  deliver a complete StorNext environment that fits in only 2 rack units. And when you can place the full capabilities of StorNext, the world’s fastest collaborative, shared file platform in more places than ever before, it will change how and where you think about your critical workflows. 

Take Your Solutions to the Edge – Move More of the Studio to the Set 

By converging all of the capabilities of StorNext , the world’s fastest collaborative, shared file platform into a single appliance, you can get racked and running in minutes whether you’re adopting StorNext for the first time or adding more power and capability quickly to your existing environment: 

  • Bringing Your Entire Team Together Just Got Easier: Make the leap to a unified, end-to-end workflow for a new level of efficiency and faster time to delivery. 
  • Adding New Teams and Projects Anywhere Just Got Easier: Extend your existing StorNext environment quickly to a new office or for a new project without complex infrastructure buildout. 
  • Analysis and Insight at the Edge Just Got Easier: Move high-performance analysis and critical solutions closer to the point of capture for faster insight and action.
  • Bringing Post to Set Just Got Easier: Bring post-production to the set – from ingest, to pre-visualization, to rough cuts.  

The new H4000 truly lets StorNext 7 – and your workflow fly: 

  • Ultrafast end-to-end architecture on PCIe 4 and the latest multi-core processors. 
  • New unified interface to manage the entire StorNext environment and the H4000.
  • Converged architecture to deliver all of the capabilities and services of StorNext. 
  • Flexible storage options to deliver 12 or 24 bays of storage and up to 160 TB or 307 TB. 
  • Flexible connection options to deliver your optimum mix of network and connection technologies including 100 Gb Ethernet and 32 Gb Fibre Channel.  

Join Our Live Talk on May 18! 

We’ll be taking you through all the features and all the ways you can get the most from StorNext 7 on the H4000 – join us here .

Until then, you can read more H4000 Series details here  or contact  your Quantum representative or Value-Added Reseller to review your workflow. 

To view our Partner blog, click here

VirtualQ I Transform Recap: Helping you Unlock the Value of Unstructured Data

ActiveScale

As we head into the holiday season, it’s a good time to recap some of the major things we’ve introduced this year, and in many ways our recent VirtualQ I Transform event was the culmination of a years’ worth of effort in bringing new products and solutions to market. 

In November, our VirtualQ I Transform event focused on how unstructured data growth, and unlocking the business value in this data, is transforming how our customers think about data. This event was the culmination of our launch efforts of the expanded portfolio we announced on November 10 – focused on managing, storing, and protecting unstructured data across its lifecycle. You can access all of the sessions and watch at your convenience here .

Most Popular Topics During VirtualQ I Transform

Based on the hundreds of attendees across many different sessions hosted over two days (one European event, and one event for the Americas), here are some of the topics that resonated most and generated the most interest:

Unstructured Data Sprawl: Many of our customers are outgrowing their capacity and looking at new ways to manage ‘unstructured data sprawl.’  We are helping these customers gain better visibility into what data they have, where it lives, and automate ways to move data between edge, core, and cloud environments. The new automated data movement we’ve added to StorNext 7 and ATFS can help in this regard, and were two of the key things we introduced. 

ATFS Storage Platform: There were many questions about our new ATFS storage platform, an easy to use, cost effective NAS platform with integrated data classification. This data classification is a major advancement in giving customers visibility into the file data they are storing.  With simple queries, customers can gain new insights into the make-up of their file data, where it lives, and then quickly use those insights to drive actions that can be enforced with data placement policies, data protection policies, and storage quotas. 

ATFS Trial Download: As we mentioned during our event, for anyone interested in learning more about the ATFS platform, and to start to classify the file data you have today, download a full version of ATFS here . It only takes a few minutes, and you can start to see the impact this platform can make to your NAS infrastructure.

Ransomware Protection: There was also a lot of interest in new ways and best practices to protect against ransomware, and security of data in general. This continues to be top of mind for many of our customers, and we now have options to protect against ransomware regardless of your technology choice, and regardless of the application you are using. We’ve introduced Object Lock to our ActiveScale object store software , we are adding a similar snapshot retention lock feature to our DXi backup appliances , and tape remains the most secure storage with innate air-gapped protection, Active Vault software to automatically move tapes to an in-library vault, and security capabilities like AES-256-bit encryption and multi-factor authentication.

“Forever” Data Archives: Lastly, there was continued interest in the emerging realization that much of this valuable data being created and analyzed will need to be kept forever in a private cloud. Our solutions for this “forever” data archive continue to drive interest, from object storage software with erasure encoding, to RAIL tape, to ways to index and search the content in these archives. Look for some exciting announcements in this area in the coming weeks and months. You can check out the “Forever Archive” white paper here .

Looking Ahead

We are continuing to innovate and transform our own business with a focus on solving our customers’ most pressing business challenges in the areas of video, digital images, and other forms of unstructured data, and we can’t wait for 2021! 

Watch VirtualQ I Transform Sessions On-Demand

If you missed the event, watch replays at your own pace to learn more about managing, storing, and protecting unstructured data across its lifecycle.

Watch Sessions On-Demand Now!

To view our Partner blog, click here

Re-Imagining Quantum’s Portfolio for Managing Unstructured Data

ActiveScale

This week, we made a significant announcement, introducing an expanded portfolio focused on classifying, managing, and protecting unstructured data across its lifecycle. The new products we introduced represent another significant step in our vision to lead in video and unstructured data solutions and represent a key shift in focus from ‘storing’ data to ‘managing’ data. 

Accelerating Data Growth, Data Movement, and Use of Hybrid- and Multi-Cloud

Our customers are dealing with massive unstructured data sprawl – video, digital images, and other forms of unstructured data are growing by 30-60% per year. Many of our customers have millions or billions of files and lack visibility into what they have, and where it lives. This lack of visibility combined with the velocity of data growth is putting pressure on infrastructure costs and forcing companies to rethink infrastructure designs. 

At the same time, the COVID pandemic has resulted in permanent changes to the workforce, driving more data movement (between edge / core / cloud), and an acceleration in the adoption of hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud. The emergence of AI and machine learning techniques provide new tools to leverage this data, and is also driving new lifecycle and ‘workflow’ requirements for this data, including a desire to preserve and protect this data and keep it accessible for decades. 

All of this adds up to what we see as the key challenge facing our customers in this decade – how to unlock business value out of all of this data, and manage this data across the entire multi-decade lifecycle of this data.

Manage Unstructured Data, Across Any Workload, End-to-End with Quantum

Our expanded portfolio can help our customers tackle this challenge, starting with new ways to classify and manage data across its lifecycle, for any workload, end-to-end. This expanded portfolio is depicted and summarized below:

atfs graphic

The new announcements include:

  • New ways to visualize, automate, and purposefully place data, with Quantum’s All-Terrain File System (ATFS) , a next-gen storage platform targeted at the NAS market. 
  • StorNext 7 :  The latest version of Quantum’s high-performance file system, for high throughput low-latency workloads. StorNext 7 introduces new features like file system pools that optimize the use of NVMe for production storage, as well as new ways to program and manage the file system.
  • An expanded ActiveScale object storage portfolio , including a new 3-node object storage system, object lock to protect against ransomware, and small object aggregation to improve the performance of small objects.

Lastly, all of these new offerings are available on a capacity basis, with new all-inclusive software licensing that aligns our licensing with the value we are delivering to customers. 

We look forward to engaging with customers and partners on this expanded portfolio – to learn more, please register for our VirtualQ I Transform event where we will be showcasing all of these new solutions.

To view our Partner blog, click here

This Week at the Q

CMMA Blog

Welcome to another entry of ‘This Week at the Q’ and our top 5 highlights – make sure to read number 5 for a terrorific Halloween update that will help you up your pumpkin game!

1. What’s better than 1 puppy?

puppies social

We have 3 new product announcements coming soon! You can follow the countdown on our website , and register for our upcoming VirtualQ | Transform event where we will be showcasing these new solutions and how they unlock the value of your unstructured data – both today and tomorrow.

2. ViON Corporation has launched archive-as-a-service to provide customers that require an on-premise solution for tight control of their data, but want a cloud-like experience, with a flexible, low-cost alternative. This ViON service uses Quantum StorNext® to provide either a file or object interface, and Quantum tape storage as the low-cost, long-term storage technology. Like cloud services, this as-a-service offering provides flexible resources that can easily scale up – or down – at any time, in a pay-as-you-go financial model. You can read more in the case study here .

blo vion

3. Quantum’s Noemi Greyzdorf, Director of Product Marketing, participated in a panel discussion hosted by the CEO of Daregraphic, on “Managing Unstructured Data to Unlock Enterprise Value.” The panel explored innovative ways to help organizations federate this data and realize its true value.  The replay is available here .

4. We’re so excited that StorNext 6.4 won Product of the Year at 2020 NAB Show NY! Recognized for enabling content mobility and making hybrid and cloud storage environments more accessible. Read more here .

nab2020 winner

5. Come join us, and experts Maniac Pumpkin Carvers, to up your Halloween game this year! On October 27th, at 3PM ET, we will provide a quick glimpse into Quantum’s transformation, before transforming your pumpkin carving with a 50-minute demo by Maniac Pumpkin Carvers to give you all the tips you need. The first 50 registrants will receive a free pumpkin carving kit, and all attendees will receive a special treat – we promise no tricks! Families welcome!

halloween contest

Leave a comment if there are topics you’d like to see added to our weekly top 5 happenings!

Natasha

To view our Partner blog, click here

This Week at the Q

Archive Storage

Wondering about the role object storage plays in managing unstructured data, and when it’s the best option?  We have several new articles covering this, and more, in this week’s Top 5 happenings. 

1. VMblog.com published a new article, “The Cost and Value of Object Storage.” Object stores have long found a home in the cloud and inside data centers as long-term repositories for high-value data, but with demand for storage capacity growing daily, can you reap the benefits of object stores within budget?  In this new coverage, Quantum’s Technical Director, Matt Dewey, answers this and discusses the critical role object storage can play in managing unstructured data growth.

2. Another good read, and follow on, from Matt can be found on Continuity Central. Unstructured data is proliferating, creating both compliance and recovery risks. Matt explains why object storage is a promising option to help deal with this issue, and covers how to leverage data cataloging and management as the keys to success in “Addressing the risks related to unstructured data through the use of object stores.”

3. In this new blog, “Blocks, Files, Objects: What is Right for Your Application?” Rob Renzoni, Sr. Director Technical Sales at Quantum, points out how storage administrators have many storage-format options to choose from, such as block, object, file, and NAS. Making the right choice when selecting which format will best serve your organization’s data and workflow needs is critical to overall success. A poor choice can lead to data and application services delays, inflated costs, lack of scalability, complex management frameworks, and a host of other issues. He digs into some of the format options and what workflows they are best suited for.

4. I grew up watching Sir David Attenborough, and his inspiring coverage of our natural world. If you ever need a reminder of how amazing and beautiful the world we live in is, tune in to one of his shows! So I was excited to learn about the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in this newly published case study . BAS enables international scientists to conduct world-leading research in the Earth’s polar regions. Quantum Scalar tape libraries allow researchers to protect large volumes of critical research data while their ship – the RRS Sir David Attenborough – is at sea. Once each research trip ends, the IT team transports the high-capacity tapes back to the data center in England, where the organization makes the data available to a broad scientific community. I love knowing we’re a part of such incredible work!

BAS case study

5. We have big product news coming soon – in fact, three big pieces of product news, because they say the best things come in threes!  Register here for our upcoming VirtualQ | Transform event , on Thursday, November 19th, where we will be showcasing these new solutions, and more, in three tracks:

Data Management: The Need for Insights, Automation, and Visualization

Accelerate Time to Insights: The Future of StorNext and High-Performance Computing

Protect and Preserve: Assuring Data Accessibility Today and Into the Future

vqtransform

Leave a comment if there are topics you’d like to see added to our weekly top 5 happenings!

Natasha

To view our Partner blog, click here