* New storage technology is nearby
You’d think that after all this time you might have to go a long way to find a new storage technology. However, the reality is to the contrary.
Recently a bunch of start-ups – Cluster File Systems, Panasas, Permabit and Reference Information Systems – said they’d be rolling out object-oriented storage systems where data is stored based on its contents rather than its location or a specific data block.
In a recent article, Network World Senior Editor Deni Connor wrote that in object-oriented storage, each piece of data is represented as an object and assigned a unique digital identifier or fingerprint, which is used to retrieve it. The fingerprint, which a hash algorithm creates, is used not only to retrieve the object, irrespective of its location and placement on tape or spinning disk, but also to maintain the integrity of the data against changes or deletion. Often called metadata, the fingerprint tracks the data’s location, so that it can be retrieved quickly and so that related data objects, such as X-rays and test results for a patient, can be correlated and retrieved coherently.
Meanwhile, our Technology Update author this week writes that object storage provides two fundamental benefits. First, it gives clients direct access to network-attached storage devices through parallel data paths, supporting high concurrency and scalable data access. Second, it distributes file-system metadata (file names, directories, file ownership) across a scalable clustered metadata manager to support standard file-system operations in an out-of-band control path. Together, these features ensure a scalable storage system capable of sustaining high-performance I/O simultaneously to hundreds of clients.
Other companies also are going after this market for quickly accessing primary or secondary data. EMC‘s hardware and software-based Centera system focuses on storing what is called content-addressable storage – data that doesn’t change and needs to be retained for a long period of time. Network Appliance’s NearStore appliance and SnapLock software store data in regulation-compliant mode. Start-up Avamar focuses on backing up and retrieving object-based data. And start-up Persist Technologies‘ AppStor software is designed to archive object-tagged e-mail records.
For more on this technology see: https://www.nwfusion.com/news/tech/2003/1027techupdate.html
