Mobileye Selects Storwize Primary Compression for NetApp NAS

Storwize announced that Netherlands-based Mobileye, in vision-based Driver Assistance Systems (DAS), has selected Storwize’s real-time data compression appliances in order to control costs and reduce its total storage requirements by approximately 50 percent.

Storwize’s Random Access Compression Engine (RACE) technology reduces storage capacity utilization without performance degradation, lowering IT storage footprint and associated costs.

Founded in 1999, Mobileye is recognized as the leading pioneer in vision-based DAS and has been selected by a wide range of global automotive companies such as BMW, Volvo and GM for their production vehicles. Over 200 engineers are developing system-on-chip and computer-vision algorithms providing various functions using vision only such as Lane Departure Warning (LDW), Vehicle Detection , Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Headway Monitoring (HMW), Pedestrian Detection, Intelligent Headlight Control (IHC), Traffic Sign Recognition (TSR), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), and more.

Mobileye’s Challenge – Data Growth
Mobileye collects and stores large amounts of real-time images from video cameras used in automotive tests. Over the years, these raw image files have grown in size and number. Historically, the Mobileye developers used local disk on workstations as their storage; however, facing tremendous backup and data management challenges, the company required a more centralized and high availability storage infrastructure. In addition, as the company grew and brought in additional customers, features and projects, the amount of stored data grew exponentially to more than 230 TB of disk capacity, mostly comprised of the large archive of video recordings used for testing the products in various driving conditions and the company’s entire source code library. This data was also used by multiple applications including, file sharing and back office applications, code compilations, ARM/MIPS applications, and chip design (CAD/CAM).

Mobileye IT saw a need to consolidate its storage and find a way to maintain large amounts of data without increasing the storage footprint and costs. Together with Network Appliance, Storwize and a third-party integrator, Mobileye developed a new centralized, high availability infrastructure to accommodate the large amounts of active data that it was rapidly accumulating. The environment included NetApp FAS3140, FAS3160 network attached storage (NAS) clusters, as its primary storage solution, and dual Storwize STN 6810 appliances for real-time, primary data compression. Storwize’s STN appliances sit transparently between the network and the NAS cluster without changes to the network, storage, or applications.

The Benefits of Deploying Storwize RACE
for Real-Time Data Compression
At first, Mobileye was skeptical about being able to effectively compress its large raw video files, which typically cannot be compressed. The company had used de-duplication on the data that it had already stored, but achieved only a 20 percent reduction, which was not even close to the results that Mobileye was hoping to accomplish. Mobileye IT then turned to Storwize’s real-time data compression appliances and immediately realized a compression ratio of approximately 50 percent, basically doubling the storage capacity.

As its business continued to grow and the amount of data doubled, the company was able to accommodate that expansion in data without having to purchase additional storage. The other benefit that Mobileye realized with Storwize was in performance enhancements. Storwize increased the data throughput from 150 – 200 MBps to 300 – 315 MBps, an improvement of almost 100 percent. Storwize enabled Mobileye to dramatically optimize its primary storage capacity, increase performance and continue to scale its business while reducing overall storage costs, realizing a 50 percent savings in TCO.

"I am very impressed with Storwize and their professionalism from the deployment to the support. They know systems and storage, deliver on what they promise, and are willing to stand by their product," stated Michael Kadmiel, IT Director, Mobileye. "Storwize is a company that you can really enjoy dealing with – they are really incredible."

Storwize is the only company that offers real-time, random access data compression of primary storage. Through the implementation of its RACE technology, Storwize appliances can reduce storage utilization between 50 and 90 percent and dramatically reduce the overall cost of storage. Storwize helps slow the growth of storage, reducing the amount of storage to be managed, powered, and cooled.

"Storwize’s unique storage optimization solution empowers IT managers to build high performance and scalable storage infrastructures that can support the demands of high growth storage and application environments," stated Steve Kenniston, Vice President of Technology Strategy, Storwize. "Mobileye’s deployment of our real-time data compression solution is a perfect example of how Storwize helps companies expand and optimize their business operations while reducing their storage costs."