DataDirect Networks has announced Web Object Scalar (WOS), which consists of a cluster file system suitable for very large, long-tail object management, together with purpose-built storage appliances. The file system has many of the characteristics of the Google File System (GFS) in that it enables distribution across the cloud. It is a single file system that is massively scalable to billions of files or objects and is self-healing.

What is unique is the focus on performance. Access from an application is from a simple API which requires only one seek operation to deliver a file or object back to the requester. The key metric for this is not IOPS but objects per second (OPS). The result of this best-of-breed OPS performance is to reduce the cost of storage and reduce the necessity for content delivery networks (CDN).

The types of application for which this may be a suitable platform include:

Banks that are storing over 1 billion check images per day (replacement for IBM’s mainframe OAM);

Health Care systems for storing billions of image and video records across the country;

Large social networking sites that need to origin serve every image requested;

Enterprises or ISVs that want to create multi-petabyte, low-cost archives with very fast access.

WOS competes with EMC’s ATMOS cloud hardware and software, and with general purpose filers that focus on storage efficiency within a single data center. The advantage that WOS has over ATMOS is a far lower entry point of a few terabytes, one seek/object as opposed to 2.5 claimed by EMC, and very high OPS storage performance. The advantage of WOS over traditional filers is scalability and overall cost as the system grows. The disadvantages of DataDirect are newness to this part of the storage market and the relatively small company size.

Wikibon is impressed by DataDirect’s laser focus on the OPS performance metric. It claims to be able to store 2 billion small (50KB) objects and achieve 12,000 OPS using a single WOS 6000-HD 4u enclosure, which holds 60 450GB SAS drives. A higher capacity/lower performance option with the WOS 6000 (60 1TB SATA drives) provides storage for 2 billion larger objects and delivers 4,500 OPS.

Action Item: DataDirect has held to its DNA by attacking “on-the-edge” storage challenges. It has defined the cloud requirements for this part of the market by listening to the largest service providers, and architected, written and driven to market a solution. Given that the beta’s are successful, Wikibon believes that this vision and implementation will be a strong contender for both for service providers growing out of their mid-tier arrays and for new entrants wanting to start small. CTO’s should test the technology and build a complete business case including the total cost of storage, networks and servers to compare with other approaches.

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