Realty Data uses Zadara Storage and RightBrain Networks

Designed for repository storage at Amazon Web Services (AWS), this installation typifies the greater performance, agility, scalability and cost savings possible by the right software-designed storage approaches - even at Big Data scale. Realty Data had grown to the point that its existing on-premises EMC SAN would not scale cost-effectively, and moving its 800 million+ image files to native Amazon storage options such as EBS and S3 proved problematic. The company then turned to RightBrain Networks, which helped it switch to Zadara Storage’s Virtual Private Storage Array (VPSA) and achieve its business goals at AWS without compromise.

“We were sceptical at first about an architecture going from one data centre to another to pull up images, especially at our scale; but with the combination of AWS compute resource and Zadara Storage that RightBrain helped us build and deploy, we’re getting better performance than what we had from an on-premise EMC SAN, and saving at least 50% of our data centre costs,” said Craig Loop, director of technology at Realty Data Corp. “Following the migration, instead of getting complaints, we actually had customers stating that they noticed a performance increase in our system. We now have flexibility and agility to try new approaches as we grow our business, without having to plan and buy the storage we need to run them.”

A property information solutions provider to the mortgage and insurance industry that serves up land surveys, titles and other documents used in real estate transactions, Realty Data made the decision to move its data centre to the cloud and consolidate three EMC SANs into one unified cloud-based architecture at AWS for cost control and scalability reasons.. It chose AWS’ EC2 for its exceptional compute resources, but storage quickly proved problematic. EBS was expensive and its 1 TB per volume size limit made it not feasible for a large volume of data. Amazon’s S3 object storage wasn't compatible with the more I/O intensive, block-level storage needed by Realty Data’s application. Even though most of the application data are small image files, the sheer volume of hundreds of millions of them--and the need to access them with the same immediacy that its customers have grown to expect from an on-premises data centre resource--ratchets up architectural complexities. As a result RightBrain Networks turned to Zadara Storage, whose enterprise-grade features promised a different way for Realty Data.

The result was that Realty Data’s application transformed the downsides of on-premises storage – costs, complexity, staffing, scalability challenges, inflexibility – into exactly what excelled in the storage architecture. Because Zadara’s enterprise VPSA can scale to nearly 1 billion files, all in one large pool instead of the 1 TB volume size limitation of AWS’s EBS, Realty Data could architect its storage so that it would not need the AWS EC2 server to act as a data manager using 60 individual 1 TB EBS volumes. Working in support of Realty Data, RightBrain Networks’ site reliability engineers could directly map Realty Data’s storage onto a network drive attached to an instance and deliver an image with almost zero latency.

Instead of needing sizable capital outlays for traditional storage hardware/software and the need for a dedicated hire to manage just the storage alone, Realty Data could simply scale up or down its storage resources elastically from a dedicated management interface with the click of a button. Instead of accepting less I/O performance in exchange for agility, or provisioning adequately yet consuming CapEx and staffing budgets, Realty Data’s system delivered superior storage performance on demand, without the heat, cooling, floor space and staffing hours.

Zadara’s Virtual Private Storage Arrays provides customers with data centre-grade performance at cloud storage scalability and pricing, with enterprise-grade features not found elsewhere in a cloud-deployed model. Zadara’s storage stack resides on premises adjacent to the AWS US East data centre and linked via AWS Direct Connect high-speed fibre connections. Zadara drives are private and not shared with anyone else, so Zadara users can obtain single-tenant performance at multitenant prices. Expansion to more drives, or switching from disks to SSDs, is as simple as clicking a button on the dedicated online management interface provided to each customer. At any time Zadara users can also eliminate drives, adjust controller performance, and fine tune other storage needs on the fly – allowing agility and control in a flexible, pay-as-you-go model. Zadara customers pay only for the storage they consume, without long term commitments or up-front fees, and can add or decrease storage requirements at any time.

“Our motto is ‘no-compromises enterprise data storage services,’ and there’s no better poster child for that motto than Realty Data,” said Nelson Nahum, CEO of Zadara Storage. “Through the help of our partner RightBrain Networks, Zadara Storage is pleased that Realty Data is achieving exactly the results we designed our VSPA to deliver – even with 800 million image files. At a time when businesses can’t tolerate traditional storage buying cycles and CapEx demands, Zadara Storage allows the high performance, scalability, elasticity and agility that are the hallmark of a well-run business.”