German Cancer Research Center Deploys Datadobi StorageMAP Platform

The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the largest biomedical research institute in Germany, has deployed Datadobi StorageMAP platform to strengthen its data management and security capabilities.

With over 3,000 employees, including 1200 scientists, and a vast amount of critical data, it required a robust solution to manage its 27PB of unstructured data and ensure its availability and protection.

Tobias Reber, working group leader for central servers, DKFZ in charge of several petabyte-grade filer servers, highlighted the value of Datadobi’s software in addressing their data management challenges: “Over the years, we have worked with Datadobi and deployed their software for continuous data management, including data migration and filer archiving. The reliability and speed of the software has always been impressive. In a previous project, we successfully replicated over 1PB of data within a few days.“

He went on to commend the expertise and support provided by the Datadobi team: “The deep-rooted knowledge, skill, and expertise of the Datadobi team have been instrumental in the success of our projects. They took the time to understand our business and needs, providing reassurance and ensuring our projects’ success.“

He also highlighted the ease of deployment and the platform’s capabilities in providing a view of their data landscape: “With StorageMAP, I gained valuable insights into our data environment. I was able to identify data that should have been archived but remained on the system for years. StorageMAP empowered me to take informed actions, such as tagging data, detecting orphaned data, and making decisions to pipeline, migrate, archive, or delete data. This not only saves costs but also mitigates potential security and operational risks.“

Last but certainly not least, DKFZ’s commitment to conducting research in a sustainable manner aligns with StorageMAP’s capabilities.

Reber concluded: “StorageMAP allows me to measure the carbon footprint of our data center and take action to reduce it, contributing to our company’s mission.“

“We are thrilled to have partnered with the DKFZ to enhance their data management and security capabilities. DKFZ’s commitment to excellence in research and their focus on conducting research in a sustainable manner aligns perfectly with our mission at Datadobi,” said Michael Jack, CRO and co- founder, Datadobi. “We are proud to provide DKFZ with our StorageMAP platform, enabling them to gain valuable insights into their data landscape, take informed actions, and protect their critical data. We look forward to continuing our partnership and supporting DKFZ in their important work.“

In related news, Datadobi announced the launch of StorageMAP 6.5, designed to support data archival and data movement of large sub-sets of file data. It is for archival of an entire filesystem tree to an object storage system or cloud environment. More complex use cases include fine-grained criteria-based data movement, such as archival of old files of a specific type (i.e., video files), or files whose owner is deactivated (i.e., orphaned data). StorageMAP 6.5 software can also be used to set-up data pipelines where data is moved between clouds, and/or between NAS systems.

With the implementation and the benefits realized, DKFZ affirmed its commitment to continue managing their unstructured data with StorageMAP – including incorporating the new capabilities in StorageMAP 6.5.

Watch Tobias Reber, group director of IT systems and data at DKFZ, describing his StorageMAP experience.