VAST Data has released v5.0 of its VAST Data platform software and claims customers can save up to 80 percent of the cost of Amazon’s EFS by using VAST’s software in AWS instead.
This software powers VAST’s disaggregated storage filers on-premises with separate scale-out controller nodes accessing scale-out storage nodes, built with QLC flash drives across an NVMe fabric. File metadata is stored in storage-class memory class drives to speed access. The vendor has added software to this single-tier storage, including a data catalog and a combined transactional and analytical database. Data Engine software is being developed so that VAST can provide an AI-capable, so-called thinking machine, capable of generating insights on its own from data.
Jeff Denworth, co-founder of VAST Data, issued a statement: “Today we’re enabling customers to quickly deploy VAST across AWS regions and establish inter-cluster relationships for data availability – making it that much easier for cloud-native organizations to take advantage of the VAST Data Platform.”
In his view, “The VAST Data Platform is the simplest, fastest, most efficient and most secure way for customers to achieve AI-powered insights from all of their data, across private and public clouds.” Well, AWS for starters, but Azure and GCP are sure to follow.
The v5.0 release feature set includes:
- Multi-Protocol Namespace on AWS – Combines multiple protocols (SMB, NFS, S3, and DataBase tables) into a single namespace, allowing users to read and write data from any protocol and eliminating the data silos and unnecessary copies caused by independent data systems.
- Multi-Cluster Manager for AWS Instances – UI for managing and deploying VAST clusters across private clouds and AWS, streamlining cloud bursting workflows and multi-region availability. Customers can transparently access data for AI workflows across the globe.
- Intelligent Anomaly Detection – Using machine learning, every VAST cluster is now able to report on anomalous user events and data behaviors to administrators via the VAST Data Uplink call home service. This allows customers to detect ransomware attacks, anomalous API calls, as well as other unusual data access patterns in VAST clusters both on-premises and running in the cloud.
- Real-Time Audit Log Analytics – Audit logs can be directly streamed into, and queried from, the VAST DataBase, providing security teams with real-time insight into incidents without requiring external Security Event and Incident Management (SEIM) systems.
- New Acceleration for the VAST DataBase – New VAST DataBase functionality such as projections and additional predicate pushdown, allowing the system to reduce query times.
An IT Market Strategy report by Merv Adrian envisages an AWS customer with 300TB of EFS data which costs $90,000/month. Using VAST v5 software instead, with 3:1 data reduction, the monthly AWS cost ($13,089) and VAST software cost ($6,965) is $20,054.
The file services area in AWS is getting crowded, with EFS competing with NetApp, Qumulo, Dell, Weka and now VAST as well – all pursuing a file fabric concept covering the on-premises and public cloud environments.
Check out VAST’s AWS microsite for more information.
