Scale Eight, Inc. announced its strategy for providing breakthrough capabilities in network-attached storage (NAS). The company introduced its Distributed Storage Software (DSS) technology at George Gilder’s Storewidth conference. Based on patent-pending technology, DSS enables NAS to be distributed locally or globally while retaining a single system image.
DSS will serve as the high-performance, highly scalable foundation for a range of Scale Eight products, including a pre-integrated NAS system available later this year.
“Current NAS systems are fundamentally bottlenecked behind a single head,” said Josh Coates, founder and CTO, Scale Eight. “DSS enables the creation of scalable, single-image NAS pools, eliminating the performance and manageability issues associated with conventional NAS.”
DSS utilizes industry-standard hardware platforms to create NAS pools. Customers can take advantage of reduced equipment costs and advances in processor, hardware, and software to increase their storage ROI.
DSS is powered by two patent-pending software components:
- A distributed file system (8FS) that enables vast numbers of NAS heads to be pooled in a single data center or between multiple geographic locations. 8FS is a patent-pending, full-featured production file system with completely dynamic, distributed management capabilities.
- A Distributed Logical Volume Manager (DLVM) that consolidates direct- or SAN-attached block storage devices into one or more logical volumes.
DSS is based on the same technology that powers the Scale Eight Global Storage Service, which has provided massively scalable, highly available storage to The Microsoft Network, MTV, and many other companies since its introduction in October 2000.
