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ScoutAM

Versity’s ScoutAM offers a simple but powerful platform to manage and preserve exponentially increasing collections of unstructured data. It is the first scalable, modular and economically efficient mass storage solution for exabyte-scale data orchestration.

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Background

ScoutAM benefits from the rich legacy of VSM and the products that came before it – namely SAM-QFS. Although the code and architecture are new, many years of experience have informed the design and engineering choices behind the ScoutAM platform.

Our vision is for ScoutAM to be not only the most capable mass storage platform in the world, but also the easiest to use.

How ScoutAM Works

  1. Data is ingested from primary sources to the ScoutAM cache using industry-standard file and object protocols.
  2. Metadata is recorded and separated from data, where it remains permanently online.
  3. Data resides in the cache while copies are generated, and thereafter for a defined time interval or until the cache space is needed for new data.
  4. Configurable policies are applied to cache data to generate the desired number of copies and write the copies to the defined destination.
    1. Policy definitions enable grouping by data type, application, size, user or group.
    2. These definitions also set boundaries on the time that can pass before the creation of copies and on the data set size.

The ability to apply different policies and coalesce random incoming data streams into efficient streaming data sets is one of the platform’s core functions.

Benefits of
ScoutAM

Easy to Use

While ScoutAM is developed for exascale workloads, it is also designed for ease of use and quick startup. In fact, installation and configuration are so simple that they can be completed in as little as 30 minutes. The modern, graphical user interface is easy on the eyes and simple to learn. Our API-driven monitoring, alerting and configuration tools give users visibility and control over their data.

High Availability

ScoutAM remains available despite the loss of servers in a cluster. Depending on the cluster’s size and the quorum definitions, ScoutAM can tolerate the loss of one or more servers with no impact on availability or continuity of services. Failover is built into the ScoutAM platform and does not require complex external failover or HA tools.

Ultimate Disaster Recovery

ScoutAM supports recovery of all data elements directly from the mass storage media, without the use of any specialized software. All information required to restore a data collection resides on the physical media with the data. Plus, asynchronous read-only remote replication allows metadata, cache data, and mass storage or archival data to be replicated to one or more disaster recovery or secondary locations to ensure continuity of operations.

Migration Free

ScoutAM is the first mass storage platform to support data formats from third party platforms, including HPE DMF, IBM HPSS and Oracle OHSM. Format support eliminates the need for costly and time consuming data migrations.

Open Source

Open source metadata combined with open source data formats gives customers complete control over data collections and aligns with long-term data preservation and data autonomy goals.

Modular

ScoutAM is a modular platform that can be expanded incrementally to increase capacity and performance over time.

Capabilities

Parallel Transfer

ScoutAM can read and write data to mass storage devices and services through multiple data channels on each node in the cluster simultaneously. Large files or objects may be segmented and written in parallel across a configurable number of data channels or across a range of data channels. Many smaller files or objects may be allocated among channels using a round-robin algorithm.

Extended Cache

ScoutAM supports the optional ability to increase cache capacity by adding low-cost S3 object storage devices to augment the capacity of the primary cache. The space available on the extended cache will be fully utilized, and the least used data will be automatically evicted as newer data arrives. Pairing extended cache storage with an all-flash primary cache enables an optimal mix of performance and capacity.

Hybrid Cloud

ScoutAM supports both on-premises S3 object storage devices and Amazon, Azure, and Google public cloud storage services. High performance cloud capabilities enable Versity sites to benefit from the flexibility of hybrid tape and cloud infrastructure.

Object to Tape

ScoutAM is capable of ingesting S3 object data through a scale out Versity S3 gateway and storing the objects data to tape for long term protection.

Automated Orchestration

ScoutAM supports the creation and automatic execution of site specific data orchestration policies.

API Coverage

The ScoutAM platform includes extensive API coverage to ease integration with third party tools and site specific workflows. All elements of the ScoutAM GUI are accessed by published APIs.

ScoutAM Architecture

Nodes and Services

Each server in a ScoutAM cluster can deliver all of the platform services and scale to increase total performance. This modular architecture ensures availability by eliminating single points of failure and delivers scalability by removing bottlenecks for metadata processing and parallel data movement between primary and mass storage environments.

The ScoutAM runtime application is present on all nodes in the cluster. Each node runs a ScoutAM executor, and the cluster runs a ScoutAM scheduler – a highly scalable virtual role that is not dependent on any specific server in the cluster. Each ScoutAM node can deliver data through as many data channels as the server configuration allows and will deliver approximately 10 GB/s of aggregate throughput per node for mid-range servers.

Rise to the challenge

Connect with Versity today to find out how we can tailor a solution to keep your organization’s data safe and accessible as you advance your mission.

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