All Panzura Cloud Storage Controllers that are members of a Multi-Site File System are managed as a single entity.
How end-users need to work with file-based content is at odds with how IT needs to manage storage.
Today there is more file-based content being created than ever. How ironic then, that sharing information within one’s own organization remains so primitive. Communications tools such as web meetings, telepresence, IP telephony, and instant messaging leverage Internet technology to make it possible for employees to meet, present, talk, chat, and be productive in ways unimaginable only ten years ago. Yet if these employees need to share files with each other, they resort to primitive mechanisms like e-mail, using large file transfer services, setting up FTP servers, or shipping USB and portable hard drives. It harkens back to the days of ZIP disks, albeit on a much grander scale.
Meanwhile, storage architects and administrators must deal with an ever increasing number of filers to keep pace with content growth and organizational expansion to new sites. This model creates several challenges:
- Storage is easier to manage when it is centralized, yet modern organizations have become more and more decentralized, necessitating multiple, remote storage deployments and the classic “islands of storage” problem.
- Storage is more cost effective to purchase when it can be done in bulk or on-demand, rather than in small increments. Decentralization of storage only drives costs up.
- Data is easier to protect when centralized, yet storage must often be deployed in remote offices, driving data protection costs higher while valuable data assets remain under protected.
- Collaboration on project files with peers in remote offices is difficult, increasing project cycle times.
- There is no way to collaborate on files in their native environment – on the filer. Using external tools to move files about requires extra steps, and often causes end-users to end-run IT, putting critical data “off the grid”.
- Simply finding information across a multitude of filers can be daunting. Global namespace tools can help consolidate the file structure, but the underlying system management problems remain.
How do you enable centralized data storage, while supporting decentralized file services? Panzura.
Placed on-site at the network edge, Panzura’s Cloud Storage Controller allow IT to centralize data storage using existing capacity, private cloud solutions, or public cloud storage services. Filers and their associated capacity, management, and backup headaches no longer need to be deployed in each site. Instead, the network of Panzura Cloud Storage Controller creates a multi-site file system that can be accessed by NFS and CIFS clients from anywhere, presenting a common view regardless of location, and managing file locking as if all clients were locally connected to a single filer. Now end-users can easily collaborate on project files even when geographically dispersed. And IT has only two management touch points - the file repository at the network core and the constellation of Panzura Cloud Storage Controller, which autonomously operate as a single unit.
Panzura Cloud Storage Controller separate the functions of capacity management and physical data protection from file services functions such as NFS and CIFS access, logical data protection, and access control. This allows a scalable, cost-effective, easy-to-manage storage core to be constructed, while gaining superior data protection, disaster recovery, and multi-site access at the edge – in a secure and high-performing solution. Panzura enables exciting new capabilities that are simply not possible with traditional storage systems.
