Quantum to offer advanced filesharing technology and performance

StorNext customers can now have high-performance collaborative storage and fast network file service together on the same platform to meet their mission-critical enterprise and content creation workflow needs. The same technology is deeply integrated within Myriad as a first-class protocol to offer robust, cross-platform file sharing. This initiative, paired with Quantum’s integration of advanced Ethernet-based connection technologies, such as NVMe-oF TCP and NVMe-oF RDMA, furthers Quantum’s vision to offer an end-to-end unstructured data and AI platform, available in both software only and appliance options. This gives customers the best possible performance and cost density choice, especially when migrating from Fibre Channel-based systems.

The technology is available as part of a broad partnership with Tuxera, a global leader in data storage management and networking software and will employ common technology building blocks across StorNext and Myriad. Quantum’s platforms will benefit from Tuxera’s cloud-scale SMB file-sharing implementation, Fusion File Share, and their long-standing partnership with Microsoft on SMB patents to offer advanced capabilities not available in open-source SMB implementations. These improvements dramatically boost file service performance and deliver enterprise-grade stability with features like SMB Direct RDMA, SMB scale-out, SMB Multichannel, SMB witness protocol, and persistent file handles.

Quantum will offer the technology as an installation upgrade option for new and existing StorNext customers, boosting SMB file service performance to meet the demands of large teams of macOS, Windows, and Linux clients, serve larger files efficiently, and deliver higher performance to their applications. With the latest version of StorNext 7.2 that adds NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF) configuration and optimisation features for high-speed Ethernet connections, customers deploying Fusion File Share on StorNext volumes built with Quantum F-Series NVMe storage appliances will see the fastest SMB performance on StorNext. By taking advantage of SMB Direct RDMA connectivity, a single Windows client can read data from an SMB share in excess of 10 gigabytes (Gb) a second using 100Gb Ethernet, unlocking extreme performance for ingest or streaming workflows not possible using systems without SMB Direct.

“Our StorNext and Myriad customers are building ever larger teams of connected users, investing more in Ethernet infrastructure, and facing challenging requirements such as 8K, high frame rates, and HDR, which are pushing the limits of client connectivity. Adding Fusion File Share technology helps them effortlessly serve Windows, macOS, and Linux client systems with incredible performance and efficiency at scale. For example, our latest testing shows that a single Windows client configured for SMB Direct and SMB Multichannel can now achieve over 10 gigabytes a second with our F-Series NVMe all-flash arrays for StorNext. This is truly a game-changer for content producers needing extreme performance and advanced workflow management capabilities,” said Nick Elvester, vice president of product operations, Quantum.

“We are pleased to announce our technical partnership with Quantum to make our enterprise-grade SMB implementation available for StorNext and Myriad users worldwide,” said Heather Goring, director of sales, Americas, Tuxera. “We’re especially excited to see Quantum integrate StorNext with NVMe-oF features to deliver extraordinary performance and make full use of our advanced features such as SMB Direct and SMB Multichannel, and as a core client service integration within Myriad.”

The SMB capabilities will be available for early access customers for both StorNext and Myriad in Q2. StorNext customers can then purchase the solution in Q3 as a turnkey Quantum Professional Services bundle that includes full-service installation, configuration, and management. The feature will be generally available for all Myriad customers in Q3.