Scality storage update to RING 7 features object, file system interoperability
A Scality storage upgrade for RING adds versioning and replication capabilities for both object storage and file protocols, as well as greater interoperability between objects and files.
With the latest version of its RING software, Scality took another step toward uniting the management of object and file storage.
Scality RING 7, launched this week, added multisite file capabilities and stronger disaster tolerance for object and file storage in cloud deployments. San Francisco-based Scality first started shipping RING in 2010 as object storage built for the cloud, but it has added a scale-out POSIX file system.
RING 7's enhanced object storage and file system protocol interoperability allows users to access and send data from both protocols, depending on workload requirements. This enhancement to the Scality storage software targets media and finance use cases, which often require namespace and data sharing from file- and object-based data.
"We see this as a direction going forward, to have shared access between both sides," said Paul Speciale, Scality's vice president of product management.
Scality RING 7 also supports asynchronous replication of files and objects for cross-region replication (CRR) in a wide area network (WAN) and hybrid cloud deployment. This supports disaster recovery in WAN environments by using CRR to a secondary Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3-based ring for enterprise data centers. It also supports CRR to Microsoft Azure public clouds for disaster recovery of workflow integration.
Scality RING's new replication capability allows one data set, or a single logical copy, to be spread out across three data centers, so it is still available if one site goes down.
"Replication of object and file follow the same principle, which is to provide high availability and continuity to end-user requirements," said Amita Potnis, a research manager at IDC. "Geo-replication for files provides high availability for users who need access to their data in addition to disaster recovery."
Replication of object and file follow the same principle, which is to provide high availability and continuity to end-user requirements.
Amita Potnisresearch manager, IDC
RING 7 Scality storage software also has new versioning capabilities for file and object protocols as potential security against cyberattacks, such as ransomware. Users can go back to an available version of the data prior to the attack. Scality RING creates time-stamped copies of deleted objects in a shadow directory, where the files cannot be overwritten.
"With versioning, files and objects cannot be accidentally overwritten. Also, access rights, retention policies can be uniquely applied to versions of the file and object," Potnis said.
Additionally, both the object storage and file system now have user-level WORM (write once, read many) capabilities. The file-based WORM function offers access control to allow read-only access to past versions and the ability to set group access control to read-only. The object storage WORM capability ensures objects are never overwritten with the versioning process.
A new S3 Connector in RING 7 Scality storage software helps manage the transition of objects across multiple rings to maintain a namespace when object locations change. A new S3 bucket location control feature for multiple rings also provides the ability to specify a "default storage location" for objects stored in each bucket, which is the logical unit AWS uses to store objects. That allows customers with Scality storage rings in different geographic locations to control where specific data is stored.
