Long Long AGO, this is a story about the continuous evolution of object storage!
In 2006, Chen Chunxi held the learning mentality of “elementary school students” in the field of storage in the field of storage, and joined the China R & D Group, which was originally started, not only participated in the research and development of the ATMOS object storage, but also as a member of the R & D team and the sales of Dell Technology. The team won the first list of Chinese object storage in 2008. Now 16 years have passed. The “primary school student” of that year has been promoted to the general manager of Shanghai R & D center of Dell Technology Group China R & D Group. Recalling some of Dell Technology’s road to innovation and evolution from 2001, Chen Chunxi was emotional. What makes him most proud is that from the initial ATMOS, to later ECS, to today’s ObjectScale, many of the pioneering products of Dai Yan Technology in the field of object storage are developed by China R & D Group.
01
Object storage has changed
In Gartner’s magic four quadrant, Dell’s technology object storage has been ranked for six consecutive years. The accumulation, innovation, inheritance and development of more than 20 years have allowed Dell Technology to accumulate in the field of object storage, and play a key role in the integration and innovation of software and hardware, flexible and diverse delivery, and support for emerging applications.
Today, as one of the digital transformation and application modernization in full swing, one of its main driving force is data, especially non -structured data. “Non -structured data accounts for more than 80 % of the total data, while 80 % to 90 % of new data is non -structured. Promoting digital transformation and implementation must be fully used to carry modern applications. Object storage is undoubtedly the most suitable carrier for non -structural data. “Liu Zhihong, general manager of the non -structured data storage division of Dell Technology Group Greater China.
The direction of modernization has been very clear, that is, Yunyuan. More and more manufacturers and products have begun to make articles around containers, microservices and Kubernetes. Under this trend, object storage cannot be just a small trouble, repair and supplement, but the product structure should be completely and thoroughly embraced Kubernetes and containerization, providing the support capabilities of the native Kubernetes architecture, and continuously enhanced agile and flexible arrangements and deployment ability. This can not only better support customers’ R & D, testing, and new businesses, but also the iterative efficiency of the object storing itself will be greatly improved.
In the past, when it mentioned object storage, people used to use it as a second -level storage, which was mainly used for the backup and archiving of massive data. The ultimate goal was to “release” higher performance and more expensive first -level storage. Time has moved, and with the breakthrough of technology, especially in the emergence of some new types of workloads, the role of object storage is changing hugely, from secondary storage to business main storage. “From the perspective of users, they hope to have a complete platform that can better support data -intensive applications, including artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, application analysis, etc. This requires a new type of storage architecture.” Chen Chunxi said, ” Under this trend, object storage is showing great potential. Object storage itself is constantly evolving and upgrading, using full flash memory, with greater capacity, higher performance, more flexible expansion capabilities, etc., which can satisfy users both The storage needs of some basic traditional workloads can also meet emerging needs such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and application analysis, and save money and effort. ”
Applying modernization requires modernized storage architecture to support. Objects of symbiosis such as cloud computing, big data and other symbiosis and prosperity have encountered the golden period of growth, and began to carry more key business workloads. Using the innate advantages of supporting the S3 protocol, on the mixed environment of “edge -core -cloud” mixed environment It is like fish.
Dell’s science and technology review for many years of the target storage market has released the next -generation software definition of ObjectScale, and through integrated delivery, software definition delivery, and multi -cloud architecture, flexibly adapt to the personalized storage needs of customers in different industries.
02
“Portrait” for ObjectScale
To some extent, Dell Technology ObjectScale storage was born for the modernization of data centers. Native support of Kubernetes, providing enterprise -level guarantees, and helping modern applications are the most typical features of ObjectScale.
Kubernetes is responsible for arrangement, scheduling, load balance and resource optimization, which has become a de facto standard. Through Kubernetes, we can effectively isolate resources and support multi -rented households, and serve the Kubernetes API to enable developers to integrate object storage into CI / CD pipes. In the new architecture, the original Storage POOL evolved into Object Store. A large number of microservices -based POD runs on the entire Kubernete Schedule. It will adapt to different operating systems, while the bottom layer is a variety of customers customable customized customers can customize customized customers. Hardware. Through the additional middle layer of Kubernetes, the separation of storage software and storage hardware can be easily realized.
Teng Yu, a senior director of the Software Engineering of Shanghai R & D Center China R & D Group China R & D Group China R & D Group, emphasized: “The so -called cloud native is not just a storage cloud, but also the network of clouds, that is, the software definition of the software. The middle layer can indeed bring greater flexibility, but performance is still a threshold that must be leapfrog. In terms of Yun’s native network and storage technology, Dell Technology has its own unique innovation. In the next version of ObjectScale, we will Through the breakthrough and evolution of software technology, the perfect unity of flexibility and performance. After all, higher performance is the goal that storage is always pursuing. ”
The currently launched ObjectScale 1.0 supports the two mainstream Kubernetes business versions of the industry, one is VMware Tanzu, and the other is the red hat OpenShift. The deployment method of all -in -one or pure software can be selected depending on the actual needs of customers.
In Khaang as the main use of the main storage, ObjectScale has all the characteristics of enterprise -level storage. On the one hand, ObjectScale inherits all ECS enterprise -level storage characteristics based on the same code library as Dell Technology ECS; on the other hand, its biggest reconstruction is to introduce Kubernetes throughout the management surface and scheduling surface. ObjectScale can not only easily achieve the expansion of horizontal clusters, but also support the addition of nodes and storage capacity vertically. “In addition to the use of Kubernetes for arrangement, Yun Chuyun also has an important feature, that is, automatic telescopic. ObjectScale perfectly achieves horizontal automatic telescopic and vertical automatic retractable. There is no restriction on the upper software. “Teng Yu explained,” The habit or differentiation of Dell Technology starts with on premise, first used for a small -scale cloud, and then extended to a larger scale Cloud, even multi -cloud architecture. This kind of automatic telescopic ability that evolved from small to large and naturally evolved in a mixed environment from on premise to cloud and then edge. ”
Modernization is driven by data. One of ObjectScale’s uniqueness is that it can help users build a global distributed data lake covering local data centers, public clouds and edges, allowing data to store transparently in the entire data lake, and freely flow, and according to the actual actual situation The case is determined when and where to use these data, instead of carelessness, it can be handled by ObjectScale.
Although Dell Technology started the research and development of object storage as early as 2001, it did not really usher in the outbreak of object storage until 2015. This is the rapid development of modern applications represented by big data analysis. Objects are treated separately from metadata and data to optimize, and it is more suitable for analyzing the needs of the engine. “Rich S3 compatibility and scalability make ObjectScale an ideal integration platform for multiple workloads to better meet customers’ needs for storage high performance and low TCO.” Teng Yu said.
Today, artificial intelligence is also a typical application scenario stored. For example, the quality monitoring of the production line of some manufacturing companies was previously completed by manual, and now it is used by machines and AI technology to identify the product pictures captured by the camera to detect whether there are scratches or other quality problems on the surface of the product. The storage of these massive product image information needs to be stored in objects like ObjectScale.
Dell Technology has just announced cooperation with Snowflake recently. Not only can the data of ECS and ObjectScale copy the data of Snowflake, analyze in the cloud, and use Snowflake Data Cloud to analyze local data on the spot. Analysis meets the requirements of compliance and data residence, which is also a great help for the security compliance operation of the enterprise.
03
Objects are stored in China for China
Since entering the Chinese market for many years, Dell Technology has always adhered to the strategy of “in China, for China”. Many of its strategic product research and development and production have settled in China. Object storage is one of them.
From the establishment of an object storage R & D team of China R & D Group China R & D Group in 2006 to this day, the scale of the entire team has continued to expand. At present, nearly 200 R & D personnel, including product managers, global architects, and front -line R & D, testing and technical support personnel. The important position of objects stored in Dell’s technology storage business has become increasingly prominent, and it has become an indispensable part of the process of application modernization.
Chen Chunxi said that the Chinese R & D team of Dell Technology storage hopes to continue to cultivate technology and cooperate in depth with the company’s sales and pre -sales teams. At the same time, it has more strongly supporting the development of local cloud native ecology in China and accelerating the modernization process of Chinese customers.
