Permabit Cloud Storage

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Massively Scalable Storage to Power Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is a ‘hot’ new storage technology for good reason. Organizations of all sizes are desperately trying to find ways to reduce total storage costs, while facing 50% annual growth rates and increasing demand to store data long term. As cloud storage becomes an integral part of IT storage strategies, customers expect a highly cost–effective, secure, and scalable solution that provides seamless access to their data. The fundamental challenge facing cloud storage is scalability. Here new multi–terabyte disk drives are the norm, but traditional RAID data protection technologies are lagging due to longer disk rebuild times. Permabit addresses the challenge of scalable data protection with a new purpose–built, cloud storage solution.

Scalable Data Protection

For building massively scalable cloud storage pools, new large capacity (multi–terabyte) disk drives are standard. Traditionally, data protection for disk drives is delivered using RAID 5, or newer RAID 6 technology. With RAID 5 and 6, recovery time for uncorrectable read errors lengthens as capacity increases (re-build time). Rebuild times that were once acceptable with 200 GB drives are now unacceptable with 1 TB and new 2 TB drives. As an alternative to RAID 5 and 6, Permabit Cloud Storage uses advanced Redundant Array Independent Node with Erasure Coding (RAIN–EC) technology.

Here is what Gartner says about Erasure Coding:

“Deploying ever–larger disks into storage systems will require the use of these advanced protection schemes to keep the success rate of high–capacity disk data rebuilds at an acceptable level.” Stan Zaffos — Gartner – July 16, 2009, Hype Cycle for Storage Hardware Technologies, 2009

The RAIN–EC technology delivered in Permabit Cloud Storage represents a fundamentally new solution for data protection for grid storage architectures, designed from the ground up for the unique challenges of a multi petabyte–scale archive. RAIN–EC is 1,000 times more robust than RAID 6 and allows for reliable deployment of petabyte–scale systems without fear of data loss. RAIN–EC data protection solution makes more efficient use of space; 50% less capacity is required for data protection purposes compared to mirroring technology, significantly reducing the total cost per terabyte of usable storage.

Permabit Enables Competitive Storage Offerings for the Cloud

Permabit Cloud Storage allows public and private cloud storage service providers to deliver the most competitive, advanced service offerings to its clients with a simple deployment and management model. Powered by Albireo™ High Performance Data Optimization technology, Permabit Cloud Storage is a scalable and secure storage platform that provides ready availability to all data. With Permabit’s flexible pricing model, service providers can take advantage of this advanced technology with minimal exposure, up-front capital expense and address the three critical technology concerns customers raise about cloud storage solutions: Scalability, Availability, and Security.

Massive Scalability

Permabit Cloud Storage includes everything service providers need to hit the ground running. The base configuration consists of two high performance Permabit Access Modules, two dedicated 48–port Gigabit Ethernet switches, and eight Permabit Storage Modules, providing 96 TB of raw capacity and can scale to 6.9 PB. The system comes pre–racked and can easily be expanded with additional hardware components and software options available from Permabit. The product also includes Permabit’s High Availability and Storage Pool Expander options to help address the unique uptime and scalability requirements of the cloud storage service provider.

Availability

Access and availability to customer data is critical. Data must be available on a 24 x 7 basis, without interruption. Permabit delivers the high availability needed for service providers to meet aggressive Service Level Agreements.

Security

Data security is a primary concern raised when customers research offsite computing and storage solutions. Permabit provides granular access controls to support multi–tenant environments with the highest security.

Permabit Fits Easily into Your Existing Environment

Permabit Cloud Storage is designed to integrate easily into any existing data center infrastructure. With open interfaces to speed integration, self healing technology to avoid system outages, and a single management interface to provide ease–of–use, Permabit Cloud Storage can be rapidly deployed to accelerate both revenue–generation and ROI.

Figure 1. Permabit Cloud Storage easily and seamlessly integrates into your environment.  >> Click for larger image

Use Case Scenario: Global service provider

As the service provider market has evolved, the primary concern has been on the secure and cost–effective hosting of applications for multiple customers in order to build a profitable business. Storage itself has been a side issue until the time when the initial storage investment has been consumed and more resources are required to continue services.

When a global cloud computing vendor faced this situation, they began searching for a more flexible storage architecture that allowed them to better withstand the storage demands of its many customers. Their storage needs were straightforward. The system had to be scalable, allowing them to easily add capacity as necessary without downtime and without impacting user access to data. It had to be very cost–effective, and needed to host multiple clients’ data securely within one storage system while ensuring secure data access that would provide true economies of scale. Finally, they required a storage solution that could be implemented without a heavy up–front financial investment.

Permabit Cloud Storage met each of this service provider’s requirements, allowing them to deliver a highly competitive solution — which helped them improve customer retention and grow new business.

Here’s what Permabit delivered:

• Flexible, Massive Scalability: Permabit Cloud Storage simultaneously deployed multiple storage grids that could easily scale to 216 TB each, thus supporting virtually unlimited storage growth. Additional performance can be added independently of storage via access Modules, providing the ability to scale as customer demands dictated.
• Increased Storage Capacity & Reduced Storage Footprint: Permabit Cloud Storage provided the ability to store much more information in a dramatically smaller footprint due to the benefits of Permabit’s Scalable Data Reduction (SDR) which combines in–line, sub–file level data de–duplication with compression.
• Fully–Compliant Solution across Multiple Customers: Permabit Cloud Storage built–in WORM capability allowed the provider to offer a separate compliance–based tier of storage for their customers to meet multiple regulations and compliance requirements.
• Fast Implementation & Easy Management: Because Permabit Cloud Storage is a NAS device, management is very simple. Storage management is effortless and does not require any complicated LUN configuration and provisioning. A simple web UI is all that is needed to manage the entire system.

The net result is a massively scalable storage system that is easy to manage and cost–effective, providing a reliable storage platform for their customers’ data. Permabit provided the technology and flexibility that allowed this service provider to deliver different levels of value storage to its many clients with one storage solution.

Find out More

Contact Permabit today to discover how Permabit Cloud Storage can help you meet your storage and archiving challenges. Please see the Permabit Cloud Storage Specification datasheet for complete technical details. Call us at 617.252.9600, contact your local Permabit partner, or view our solutions at: www.permabit.com.