DataDirect Enters Private Storage Cloud Market

With this week's announcement of their Web Object Scaler (WOS) DataDirect Networks enters the burgeoning market for private cloud storage systems targeting applications like WEB 2.0 providers and medical imaging that need massive, scalable   file storage solutions to support high aggregate performance.

The WOS provides high space and power efficiency by using the same 60 drive, top loading modules as DataDirect's latest block storage arrays, including SGI's 6120 which is OEMed from DDN.  That platform also includes features that boost data integrity and reliability for massive arrays of SATA drives including the ability to rehabilitate drives that have reported errors or failed to respond where conventional arrays would fail the drive. Sixteen drive modules can be intermixed with the 60 drive big boys for users, or locations with smaller capacity requirements.

WOS nodes include controllers with multiple gigabit Ethernet interfaces and the WOS software that constructs a cloud from 16TB to many petabytes across multiple IP linked locations but with a single name space that can include many billions of objects. Data is automatically replicated between nodes in up to 16 defined zones and user defined policies determine how many copies of each object should be stored in each location.  

When talking about the development of WOS Alex Bouzari, CEO and co-founder, DataDirect Networks said:"File and object-based data is changing the world of content storage. The real-time need to quickly and very cost effectively access and retrieve that data from anywhere across the globe, requires a completely new approach to data handling systems design," Bouzari, continued. "We took a 'build it from the ground up' approach and designed in collaboration with the very customers whose problems we were trying to solve."

DDN claims a 200 node WOS cluster can provide well over a million random file reads/second. WOS uses an HTTP like GET/PUT API that allows application developers to store extended metadata in key/value pairs. WOS is scheduled for release in the third quarter.  Pricing will of course depend on capacity of the system.