Start-Up Gluster Introduces File System With OS Layer
To deploy petabyte-scale clustered storage on standard hardware
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on December 9, 2009 at 3:10 pmGluster, Inc., provider of scalable open source storage solutions, announced the availability of Gluster Storage Platform. By integrating the GlusterFS file system with an operating system layer and improved management user interface, Gluster provides a complete storage software platform that simplifies the task of deploying petabyte-scale storage to two installation steps and a few mouse clicks. The new platform addresses the complexity of managing ‘big data,’ the demanding scalability requirements of modern applications, and the accelerating growth of virtual server deployments.
Designed to be easy to configure and administer, Gluster Storage Platform also packs a powerful scalability and performance punch. With its ‘no-metadata server’ architecture, Gluster provides the only commercial storage platform that removes this common source of I/O bottlenecks. This approach provides true parallel data access, ensures linear scalability and eliminates the risk of metadata server failure or corruption. Additionally, Gluster Storage Platform provides a cost effective open source solution on commodity hardware that meets enterprise requirements for data availability, ease of management and scalability.
Key Highlights of Gluster Storage Platform
- Clustered storage on a stick – the complete platform image fits on a USB memory stick that can configure a bare server to a clustered storage node in 15 minutes or less
- Unified global namespace – scale to hundreds of petabytes in a single volume across multiple commodity storage nodes
- Web-based installation and management – rapid installation of first storage node with disk formatting performed post-install; integrated management of volumes, data resources and servers plus centralized logging and reporting
- High availability – data can be replicated (mirrored) for high availability; real time self-healing performs error detection and correction within files while they are running and during recovery from hardware failures
Additionally, Gluster Storage Platform ensures continuous operation of virtual machines (VMs). Replicated virtual machines can continuously operate in the event of hardware failure and recovery is performed in the background without requiring a restart or blocking I/O to the live VM. Gluster Storage Platform uses checksum based healing which detects and corrects errors within the VM rather than for the entire VM image.
“Gluster Storage Platform is the natural evolution of GlusterFS, combining the power and scalability of clustered storage with unparalleled simplicity,” said Anand Babu (AB) Periasamy, co-founder and CTO of Gluster. “Gluster is the only commercial scale-out storage platform that eliminates metadata server issues and allows non-experts to deploy petabyte-scale storage with the ease of an install wizard.”
Virtual Storage for Virtual Servers
Gluster Storage Platform aggregates disk and memory resources into a single pool of capacity under a global namespace, providing a true virtual storage environment to complement server virtualization. VM images and application data can be stored in the same system in a single volume, eliminating silos of data and centralizing management. Multiple storage building blocks are clustered together in parallel, eliminating I/O bottlenecks and hotspots that often negatively impact VM performance. With Gluster, storage administrators no longer need to manually manage multiple volumes and individual storage connections.
It is now common for mission critical applications to be deployed on VMs. The VM images not only need to be stored, they also need to continue operating in the event of hardware failures and not allow faults to interrupt applications and services. Gluster Storage Platform employs file replication to ensure multiple copies of a VM are available in the event of hardware failure and provides both high availability and sophisticated real time self-healing to ensure continuous VM operation.
Product Availability & Pricing
Gluster Storage Platform is now available with subscriptions starting at $1,500 per storage node per year.
Gluster Subscription Overview
Comments
Born in 2005, the open source clustered file system company is headquartered in Milpitas, CA with an office in India.
The founding team, including CEO Hitesh Chellani and CTO Anand Babu (AB) Periasamy, came together at
California Digital Corporation in 2003 to build a supercomputer,
'Thunder', for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and put into
production in 2004. This team founded Z Research with the goal of
simplifying clustered computing on a foundation of open source software
and commodity hardware and bringing it to the enterprise.
Other executives include Jack O’Brien, senior director of marketing,
formerly director of marketing at Gear6, and Eff Norwood, senior
director of systems engineering previously director of strategic
accounts at Riverbed.
The name Gluster is a combination of GNU plus cluster then changed into
Gluster.
The first customer engagement was with Petróleos de Venezuela
S.A (PDVSA), the Venezuelan national oil company. Gluster now has 30 clients.
Nexus Venture Partners, Index Ventures, and angel investor, Anil
Godhwani, on the board of the start-up, invested $4 million in the company accounting now 35 employees.
Its products are currently distributed by RAID, Inc., Cambridge Computer, Scalable Informatics, Concurrent, and Wipro.
Main competitors in clustered file system are Isilon, HP/Ibrix and ParaScale.
Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
