DataDirect Networks Launches WOS 2.0 Storage Appliance

WOS 2.0 introduces cloud storage management capabilities such as multi-tenancy, bill-back, encryption and per-tenant reporting.

Information storage company DataDirect Networks unveiled the next generation of its Web Object Scaler system, WOS 2.0. With this release, DDN introduced accessibility and data protection features to complement an appliance built on a cloud storage system, which the company said is capable of scalable performance 70 percent faster than Amazon S3 and more than 100 times faster than EMC Atmos. WOS 2.0 sports a scalable cloud storage appliance architecture supporting more than 20 petabytes and hundreds of locations all managed by a single pane of glass.

Other features include expanded support for industry-standard and storage interfaces including NFS, Amazon S3, WebDAV and Apple iPad and iPhone clients, enhanced system performance, featuring asynchronous and synchronous replication to deliver up to 55 billion object retrievals per day and 23 billion object writes per day, erasure-code based, declustered data protection to lower storage costs and minimize request latency to less than 40 milliseconds response for small object writes and a complete cloud storage platform for service providers, including multi-tenancy, billing and support for custom white-label service.

In addition, WOS 2.0 introduces asynchronous replication and ObjectAssure, a data protection feature which offers an erasure-code protection mechanism for hyper-scale, high-performance cloud storage. ObjectAssure provides data protection without relying on replication, which the company said helps businesses enable single-copy environments to deploy cloud storage, expand usable storage space and reduce overall storage costs.

ObjectAssure was developed for environments in which multi-site collaboration and replication is not a requirement, but that do require a lower acquisition and total cost of ownership alternative than traditional, distributed approaches. With ObjectAssure erasure coding, each WOS node can withstand up to two concurrent drive failures per node without loss of data or data availability.

"Object storage and cloud storage in particular needs to progress beyond 'cheap and deep' to become a larger part of enterprise and service provider markets," said Henry Baltazar, senior analyst of IT research firm The 451 Group. "The addition of NAS connectivity and mobile device accessibility, combined with WOS 2.0's high performance capabilities will broaden the reach of this platform."

For service providers and enterprises requiring a flexible cloud service platform, WOS 2.0 introduces cloud storage management capabilities such as multi-tenancy, bill-back, encryption, and per-tenant reporting. WOS 2.0 enables service providers to host multiple tenants and custom branding of the smart device clients, Web addresses and email notifications for each tenant. WOS 2.0 also supports multiple billing and subscription revenue models and provides usage-based reporting for pay-for-use billing.

"The volume of data from video, sensors and media is overwhelming the capabilities of traditional scale-out file solutions. As a result, object storage is quickly becoming the de facto standard for the cloud and big data era," said Dave Vellante, president and CEO of industry analyst firm Wikibon. "With WOS 2.0, DDN combines industry standard and widely adopted interfaces with the performance of its scale-out storage appliance to bring cloud economics to big data deployments."