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July 11, 2017

Scality Targets Multi-Cloud Data Storage

(robuart/Shutterstock)

As more enterprises adopt a multi-cloud strategy designed in part to avoid vendor lock-in, cloud storage vendors are responding with tools aimed at controlling and parsing data, especially the unstructured variety, while leveraging public and private cloud scaling advantages.

With that in mind, object and cloud storage specialist Scality this week rolled out an open source data controller geared toward application developers seeking multi-cloud storage options.

San Francsico-based Scality said Tuesday (July 11) its Zenko data controller is built around a cross-cloud interface based on an Amazon Web Services’ (NASDAQ: AMZN) API used with its Simple Storage Service (S3). The Zenko interface allows developers, for example, to link to a cloud with the same API and access layer while at the same time storing data in its native format.

In one example, Scality said any Amazon S3-compliant application could be stored on Microsoft Azure without modification. The accompanying data management controls could then be used to secure applications while providing a metadata search capability to query large data sets, the company said.

Data transferred via the multi-cloud controller would be stored in the Azure Blob Storage native format, permitting processing on the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) cloud with the requisite scaling, the company said.

The Zenko controller is based on Scality’s S3 server, the open source implementation of the AWS storage API. Scality said it is releasing new code for the data controller to the open source community under an Apache 2.0 license. “Any developer can use and extend Zenko in their development,” the company said.

The multi-cloud data controller is designed to provide a single API set and access to multiple clouds, providing an abstraction layer that simplifies cloud connections. The single interface based on the Amazon S3 API is said to support multi-cloud backend data storage both on-premise and in public cloud services.

The data controller is available now for Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, Docker application containers and Scality’s RING software-defined file and object storage platform. The company said Zenko would also be available soon for other cloud platforms.

As a way of leveraging new public cloud services, Scality said data written through Zenko is stored in the native format of the targeted cloud storage platform. That step allows data to be read directly without first going through Zenko.

Targeting application developers looking to speed deployment of distributed apps, it stressed that most application must still be rewritten to support individual clouds. Along with eroding productivity, the duplication makes multiple clouds more expensive. The company asserts that Zenko would allow developers to built applications once and then deploy them across different cloud services.

Scality also plans to add new features such as a metadata search capability designed to analyze data on a petabyte scale. The search tool will be available in September, the company said.

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