StorageGRID Updates Help Customers More Easily Scale and Manage Their Object Workloads

For many organizations, the journey to widespread use of enterprise AI begins with modernizing their Apache Hadoop^® and data lake environments to object storage. The NetApp^® StorageGRID^® solution is the market leader in large-scale object storage environments, and NetApp continues to innovate this technology to drive that leadership forward.  

Today NetApp is announcing 60TB QLC drive support for the all-flash StorageGRID SGF6112 appliance to help customers like you gain new levels of capacity density. This option delivers up to 3PB of capacity in 4U, reducing the required real estate and power and cooling costs, as well as improving your system’s performance. 

With 60TB QLC, SGF6112 doubles both storage density and efficiency, housing twelve 61.4TB QLC drives in each 1RU appliance. The total raw capacity of SGF6112 with 61.4TB QLC drives is 736TB, meaning that you can obtain the same capacity in a 1U SGF6112 appliance as in a 4RU, 60-drive system with 12TB HDDs.  

With the faster performance, smaller footprint, and improved power density of the SGF6112 appliance, you can use it as a primary tier for applications that perform AI/ML preprocessing and for Hadoop modernization. You can also use it as a warm tier for NetApp ONTAP^® FabricPool to offload colder data from a NetApp AFF A-Series system, which increases density and lowers costs for that data. 

This consolidation of storage space doesn’t just save on overhead. It also reduces complexity in data management and increases the potential for improved data retrieval times to directly enhance your business operations. With the design of the SGF6112, your data is not just stored, it is also an active asset, ready to drive analytics, insights, and decision-making—giving you a competitive edge in the marketplace. 

We are also announcing the availability of NetApp StorageGRID 11.9 software. This version is brimming with features to help you achieve the lowest cost for your data, improved security, and better scalability with the right level of durability and governance through built-in lifecycle management.  

Enhancements in this update, which will be available later in November, include improved scalability and performance, increased security, and maintenance upgrades. 

Scalability and performance 

• Tailored scalability. Data-only appliances and metadata-only appliances allow precise scaling where needed, so you can cost-effectively align your storage infrastructure with your business needs. 

• Comprehensive multitenancy. Manage resources effectively with bucket capacity limits and support massive scalability with up to 5,000 buckets per tenant, enabling your storage to grow as your business grows. 

• Performance-optimized appliances. Transport Layer Security (TLS) offload on the SG1100 appliance means better performance, lower overhead, and a more efficient encryption process. 

Security 

• Enhanced S3 Object Lock features. With per-tenant customization for data retention and compliance, you have the power to manage your data security with greater precision, providing peace of mind and regulatory compliance. 

• Enhanced S3 compatibility: SHA-256 checksum support maintains data integrity, while AWS Mountpoint integration promotes seamless application connectivity, streamlining your operations and reducing complexity. 

• Proactive security. Stay ahead of security threats with SSH key rotation and root login alerts, keeping your storage environment resilient against potential breaches. 

• More secure Cloud Storage Pool. Enhanced security with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Roles Anywhere and improved data protection with S3 Object Lock buckets mean that your data is secure and compliant, no matter where it lives. 

Maintenance upgrades  

• Maintenance and support. Smoothly transition to the latest hardware with enhanced node decommissioning processes and adaptable time frames for node cloning, reducing your system downtime and maintenance windows. 

StorageGRID is the industry-leading software-defined object storage solution. It can evolve and change to meet your unstructured object data needs for AI, Hadoop modernization, IoT sensor data, and exascale levels of unstructured object data across industries and workloads. 

These updates deliver even greater StorageGRID value, enabling you to easily scale and manage rapidly growing object workloads. You can mix different kinds of data or different S3 applications all in one StorageGRID solution. You can also change, update, increase, or decrease S3 buckets and S3 applications over time. This innovative capability empowers your organization to define information lifecycle management (ILM) policies for managing your unstructured object data throughout its lifecycle. These ILM policies help you maintain compliance and deliver low-cost and efficient use of storage resources, tailored to your organization’s data needs. 

As data demands continue to grow, your business must make a consequential decision on how to store your ever-growing stream of unstructured data, a piece of an intelligent data infrastructure that can’t be ignored. 

To make a well-informed decision, find out why NetApp StorageGRID is the smart choice for your unstructured data.