Red Hat moves into the big data silo business

One of the reasons why Red Hat will be the first billion dollar open-source company is that the company has also looked beyond just Linux to what you can do with Linux on the cloud and thin-client desktops; Java Enterprise Edition and now, with the release of Red Hat Storage Software Appliance, big data.

Big data you ask? Businesses have recently woken up to the fact that, according to IBM we're being deluged with big data. "Everyday, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data-so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: from sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos posted online, transaction records of online purchases, and from cell phone GPS signals to name a few. This data is big data."

So how do you manage that level of data? In Red Hat's case, you buy Gluster, an open-source storage solutions, and use it to build a big data software product built on Linux. As Red Hat stated in its press release, Red Hat Storage Software Appliance "extends the Red Hat solution portfolio with industry-leading capability for managing the storage of unstructured data."

You may have thought at the time that Red Hat bought Gluster for its OpenStack cloud support--and I'm sure that's part of the reason-but we can now see Red Hat was also interested in Gluster's GlusterFS in its own right. This open source, distributed file system is capable of scaling to several petabytes.

Red Hat Storage Software Appliance is built upon GlusterFS 3.2 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.1. The company claims that this "software-only appliance enables enterprises to treat physical storage as a virtualized, standardized and scale-on-demand pool while continuing to provide the flexibility, performance and quality required for successful open source enterprise environments across physical and cloud deployments."

In a statement, Ranga Rangachari, Red Hat's storage general manager said, "These are exciting times for Red Hat and our ability to provide our first innovative storage offering to current and prospective customers. We expect this announcement to be one of many that will enable organizations to reduce their storage costs while addressing the massive growth in unstructured data. We look forward to continuing to deliver the latest in open source storage appliances as the Storage Team continues to develop new solutions and innovative products to share."

Red Hat Storage Software Appliance is now available from for purchase and trials by prospective and current customers. For more information or to sign up for a trial, visit Red Hat storage site.

Silo image by cstreetus, CC 2.0.

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