Files written to one site in a Panzura Multi-Site File System are immediately viewable and accessible in all other sites.
The Panzura Multi-Site File System is the core technology embedded in each Cloud Storage Controller. Designed with the needs of today’s distributed organizations in mind, it presents the same file system view to all Panzura Cloud Storage Controllers that are a part of the file system, regardless of their geographical location. This enables collaboration on common data sets without having to remove files from their native storage environment where they are robustly protected, or having to figure out how to distribute content and maintain synchronization.
The Panzura Multi-Site File System simply works without users or administrators having to do anything – files can be browsed, opened, and edited as needed, regardless of where they were created or last accessed. An advanced distributed lock manager ensures access to information in the Multi-Site File System is governed by the same rules found in a standard filer. Users will never create conflicting changes and administrators will never have to figure out how to synchronize sites to each other.
Panzura's Multi-Site File System delivers advanced file services at the network edge, allowing capacity to be centrally located and protected, removing tremendous amounts of cost and administrative complexity from the storage network. While multi-site file services are a primary benefit offered by Panzura, the file system includes several other advances including:
Unlimited, space-efficient snapshots – Panzura's Multi-Site File System automatically takes point-in-snapshots at administrator defined intervals. Users and administrators alike can access the snapshot directories to recover data at the file, directory, or file system level. The combination of Panzura's snapshots along with physical data protection provided in the core network obviates the need for separate backup solutions. Data is both physically and logically protected by the very nature of how the system works.
Multi-site data reduction – Panzura takes deduplication to the next level by extending it across the Multi-Site File System. Typically deduplication works within, but not across filers. Thus the same file written to two different filers consumes space twice. With Panzura's Multi-Site File System, the deduplication engine is distributed across all Cloud Storage Controllers, allowing the global file network to be deduplicated, even if files originate in different locations. The core capacity consumed reflects a single instance of all files that have traversed the Panzura System.
Intelligent SSD Acceleration – Panzura's Multi-Site File System makes use of optional SSDs in the Cloud Storage Controllers to dramatically accelerate performance.
Self-healing Architecture – Silent data corruption is a vulnerability in most storage systems occurring when bad data is returned from disk, yet is undetected by the storage system. Panzura makes use of strong, multi-level checksums to detect silent data corruption. Once detected, the Panzura System not only corrects the problem and returns the right data to the host, it automatically repairs the anomaly.
Full Crash Consistency – The Panzura Multi-Site File System is engineered to protect data even in the face of sudden, unforeseen events such as loss of power. The system will simply recover to its last state and continue operating. All writes acknowledged to hosts are safe.
Read our technology white paper explaining the Panzura Multi-Site File System in detail.
