Who needs clustered network-attached storage? Is there a typical use case?
There are a lot of use cases. Unstructured data today is growing much faster than structured data. PowerPoint presentations, MP3s, Microsoft Word documents, the things that people use on their laptops and desktops -- all of this stuff is growing much faster than structured information such as databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and mail servers. In fact, this year, unstructured data will surpass structured data in most data centers.
So, just about everyone needs filer or NAS-type systems. The clustered NAS products have a nice leg up in an environment where you have lots of users accessing the same files. So, for example, in the verticals, they have been doing this for a while. The entertainment and music industry uses clustered NAS quite a bit, because it allows you to share workflows.
Think of that from a video or film production point of view, and that's very nice. And, it scales. Easier than, let's say, a storage area network (SAN) file system. Life sciences, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas -- these have been the industries using clustered NAS. Now, having said that, it's becoming more mainstream. One area where you are going to see it grow considerably is in the cloud-based data storage offerings.
Who are the major vendors in the clustered network-attached storage market?
There are quite a few. In no particular order:
LustreFS
Exanet
Ibrix
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Enhanced File Services (formerly PolyServe)
GlusterFS
Panasas
Bycast
NetApp Ontap GX
Isilon Systems
IBM Scale-out File Services
Active Circle
Permabit
BlueArc
