Quantum Xcellis Workflow Storage Solution

Quantum Corp. announced Xcellis workflow storage, the company’s next-generation, high-performance storage solution engineered to optimize demanding workflows, accelerate time to insight and empower organizations to drive greater success.

This solution addresses the growth of unstructured data and the opportunity to capitalize on its strategic value by enabling users to share and leverage this data more quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Powered by company’s StorNext scale-out storage platform and its streaming performance, Xcellis can be deployed as a standalone system or as the primary storage component within a multi-tier storage environment incorporating object storage, tape and cloud technologies.

For customers in data-intensive fields such as video production, intelligence, surveillance and technical applications (e.g., genomics, medical imaging, oil and gas exploration), meeting business and mission objectives depends on the ability to derive value from their digital assets. However, a key challenge has been storing and managing this data in a way that cost-effectively meets performance and access needs in an end-to-end workflow. While scale-out NAS products have enabled organizations to leverage their IP infrastructure, these offerings have been unable to keep up with the greater performance and scalability demands generated by increasingly larger data files and higher content resolutions. Xcellis overcomes these limitations and delivers a solution that automates and simplifies data management, providing a combination of converged architecture, continuous scalability and unified access in a single system.

Quantum Stornext Connect
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Converged architecture
At the heart of this solution is the Xcellis Workflow Director, a converged compute, network and file system controller that tightly integrates and streamlines the functionality of a StorNext environment.

The Workflow Director:

Consolidates multiple components into a single system, simplifying the overall storage architecture, operation, management and access for third-party applications.
Controls file system metadata and client access for SAN, Distributed LAN Client (DLC) and NAS connectivity (DLC is a connectivity option developed by Quantum).
Supports hosted applications that benefit from direct file access.
Enables users to take advantage of automated storage tiering.

Scalability
Xcellis delivers enhancements in capacity and scalability for greater efficiency and cost effectiveness:

It nearly doubles the number of files that StorNext can handle – to 10 billion files total, with 1.4 billion files under management.
Users can start with a small system and smoothly scale to the largest possible system without having to replace original hardware or take the system down, thereby protecting past investments.
Utilizing company’s QXS disk storage arrays, Xcellis provides higher capacity and bandwidth that can scale independently.

Unlike scale-out NAS offerings, Xcellis enables organizations to scale their storage continuously with consistent, deterministic performance as more users access data, pay only for whatever capacity or performance they require and avoid the need for extra compute power.

Unified access
Xcellis provides built-in unified access to data, including:

High-performing FC SAN connectivity.
DLC connectivity for ‘better-than-Ethernet’ performance over Ethernet.
Direct NAS connectivity.

Xcellis supports every phase of the workflow with the most appropriate connection to match the performance requirements of users. While more performance-focused clients will benefit from the high-speed SAN connectivity, less data-intensive operations can be completed via NAS connections over Ethernet. Xcellis ties all of these elements together and simplifies shared access through a single namespace, regardless of the number of file systems, allowing each user to access the needed files at a level of performance appropriate to the job. In addition, because DLC and NAS connectivity are separately licensable options, users pay only for the base unit and the type of connectivity they want.

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Availability
Xcellis can be ordered as a standalone system for customers across company’s scale-out storage markets and as a customizable configuration within the company’s media and entertainment-focused StorNext Pro solutions. In addition, it will serve as the foundation for a new line of surveillance solutions the company will be introducing in the coming weeks. Xcellis will begin shipping late next month, along with the latest release of StorNext 5 software.

Scott Sinclair, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, said: “Quantum has expanded its scale-out storage portfolio over the past couple years, focusing on key customer challenges such as managing 4K video and cost-effectively leveraging the cloud for archive data. In the case of Xcellis, it’s all about simplification – Quantum is integrating the most important components of high-performance workflow storage into a single, easy-to-manage, highly scalable solution.“

Geoff Stedman, SVP, StorNext solutions, Quantum, said: “One of Quantum’s key strengths is enabling organizations to capture, manage and share their data so they can maximize its value – from driving greater creativity to gaining deeper insights to making new discoveries. With the introduction of Xcellis, we are extending this expertise to a broader range of customers, delivering a solution powered by our industry-leading StorNext platform and offering a unique combination of performance, access and cost effectiveness for today’s most demanding workflows.“

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