From Japanese Start-up IzumoBASE: IzumoFS Software, “Secret Sharing Scheme” Scale-Out NAS

IzumoBASE, Inc. has announced IzumoFS, the world first ⁽¹⁾ distributed storage software that has an integrated ‘Secret Sharing Scheme’ feature built into its core.

IzumoFS can be installed on any commoditized Linux server and by clustering several nodes it is capable of creating ascale-out NAS easily. It supports inter-site clustering that adds simple but powerful DR capability from three minimum nodes. IzumoFS comes with inline de-duplication by default that reduces the amount of storage usage for each nodes and increases cache hit rate for better reading performances. User will be able to choose redundancy methods from two types, replication for performance and Secret Sharing Scheme for next generation security. Installation and setup process of IzumoFS is amazingly simple and fast which takes two steps in less than 60s.

In the past years, with the accelerated expansion of big data, IoT (Internet of Things), ultra high resolution media contents such as 4K/8K, demand for more powerful, scalable and flexible storage solutionshas never been stronger. The industry for storage space in Japan is currently a ¥40 billion market and is doubling its revenue every two years. It is apparent that traditional hardware-based storage solutions could not meet suchademand. Scale-out NAS has begun to emerge as a new storage solution and in 2016 it is expected to exceed the traditional scale-up NAS in the market.

Currently IzumoBASE has established partnership with Creationline, Inc., Network Value Components Ltd. and Uniadex, Ltd. to deliver and provide support for IzumoFS.

Features of IzumoFS

• Secret Sharing Scheme for high security data protection

• Selectable redundancy method of performance-oriented Replication and security emphasis Secret Sharing Scheme

• Runs on any commodity Linux server

• Construction of scale-out NAS that bundles multiple servers

• Inter-site clustering

• In-line de-duplication out of the box

• Easy installation and setup

Terms:

• Secret SharingScheme
  IzumoFS adopts threshold method for Secret Sharing Schemes. By dividing the data into a certain number of shares,it becomes impossible to read a single byte of data from those shares and can be only restored when certain numbers of shares are obtained.

• Scale-Out NAS
  Scale-Out NAS is a NAS that has architecture to increase its performance and capacity by adding nodes.It enablesto create efficient infrastructure without increasing operating cost by handling whole storage nodes in cluster as a single file system.

• Software-Defined Storage (SDS)
  SDS is a storage virtualization technology that provides scalability and availability by software that was conventionally achievedonly by hardware. This cost-effective software will allow users to integrate different types of hardware (depending on their requirements) with the same or higher level of functionalityof ordinary hardware based storage.

• In-line de-duplication
  De-duplication is a technology for reducing the amount of storage usage by eliminating redundant datasignificantly. IzumoFS processes it on a real-time, on-the-fly basis, with only a few overhead.It also has an advantage of extending the lifetime of SSD or increasing cache hit rate for better read performances.

Ikuo Takeuchi, senior project manager, Mitou program, Information-processing Promotion Agency, said: “I would like to give big gratitude to the announcement of IzumoFS. Dr. Arakawa was a student worked with me at the time of his both master and doctorialstudies. At that time he has been working in research of virtual file system and received the tile of “Super Creator” from IPA Mitou Business. IzumoFS is developed based on that research. IzumoFS is Fault Tolerantand equipped with version control, advanced security and very simple as distributed storage system which is of course scalable. Andmost importantly it has high cost performance. I think his dense personality is firmly reflectedinto this great product. I hope to see further improvement of IzumoBASE.”

Professor Dr. Shigeo Kagami, GM, office of innovation and entrepreneurship, Division of University Corporation Relations (DUCR), University of Tokyo, said: “Congratulations to the announcement of IzumoFS. We are organization called Office of University-Industry Collaboration and are helping start-up companies from The University of Tokyo. Dr. Arakawa was avery passionate student with entrepreneur mind from at the time of his master and doctorial studies. This time I am very excited to hear that he is trying to make large transformation to big data era in the field of software-defined storage. I strongly believe that IzumoBASE will become one of fewest Japanese company that truly has power to compete globally. I hope IzumoBASE to gain huge achievement from this announcement.”

Yasuhiro Arai, representative director, Cloud Utilization Promotion Agency Japan, said: “I am very excited to see IzumoFS, a product launching from Japan in storage market which has traditionally being driven by non-Japanese products. Especially the Secret Sharing Scheme that IzumoFS provides has made this new technology so easy to use. IzumoFS offers wide range of usage by supporting every basic protocol, CIFS/NFS/iSCSI, and can also be integrated with OpenStack. I would recommend everyone to consider examining and testing this storage software.”

Yoshimitsu Tanaka, manager, IT department, Kitahara International Hospital, said: “Scalability and availability is a must to manage our increasing medical data but we also required high security level to protect our extremely sensitive privacy information of our patients. IzumoFS wasa perfect match to realize such needs. While it is amazingly simple and easy to use, it also provides advanced security by Secret Sharing Scheme. Our vision is to export Japanese medical careto the world and we hope to apply IzumoFS to the world as core IT infrastructure of medical industry.”

Tatsuo Kimura, corporate officer and GM, support services, Uniadex, Ltd., said: “With the expantion of the ‘cloud’, big data and high visualization, UNIADEX believes that the SDS is an important technology. We strongly believe that IzumoFS will bring the next level of performance and capabilities that provides cutting-edge features such as Secret Sharing Scheme and In-line de-duplication. We are excited to provide 24/7 support, so that IzumoFS can be enjoyed and utilizedby many customers.”

⁽¹⁾ As SDS that equipped withSecret Sharing Scheme out of the box.

About IzumoBASE, Inc.
IzumoBASE, founded at April 27, 2015, is a start-up company from The University of Tokyo with vision of ‘Making Storage As A True Infrastructure’. Dr. Jumpei Arakawa, CEO, has studied about storage virtualization and distributed storage system at The University of Tokyo and based on that R&D he has developed software-defined storage IzumoFS. It is equipped with cutting edge features such as inline de-duplication and Secret Sharing Scheme while retaining very easy installation and maintenance process. IzumoFS is expected from various industries to provide them a high cost efficient storage solution.