Object storage

Object storage does away with the tree-like hierarchical file system of NAS and replaces it with a flat structure in which all objects have a unique identifier, with rich metadata that allows indexing, search, and analytics.

Feature 28 Sep 2023
Cloud NAS, what is it good for?

We look at NAS file access storage, how it works, what it’s good for and the possibilities to access storage for files and unstructured data in the public cloud Continue Reading
Feature 26 Sep 2023
IBM reorients to offset historic storage hardware decline

Storage profile: We look at IBM and the strategic shifts it has made towards the cloud, cloud-native and as-a-service offerings that aim to reverse a long-term decline in revenues Continue Reading

News 26 Sep 2023

Kubernetes storage: It’s object or nothing for MinIO

SAN and NAS are finished in the age of the cloud when it comes to cloud-native Kubernetes storage, according to container-focused object storage maker MinIO Continue Reading
News 25 Sep 2023

How Liverpool FC is tapping cloud and data analytics

Liverpool Football Club is leveraging data analytics and cloud technology to improve fan engagement and enable its media production team to work more efficiently Continue Reading
News 11 Sep 2023

Huawei launches OceanStor Pacific 9920 entry-level NAS

Huawei adds to its OceanStor Pacific NAS family, offering entry-level 9920 with up to 92TB per node which can be combined into clusters and also used as a SAN device Continue Reading
Feature 09 Aug 2023

Huawei a big storage hitter despite international troubles

Huawei is a leading storage player with an enterprise product offer across file, block and object storage, and the cloud, despite controversy and trading difficulties Continue Reading
News 02 Aug 2023

Cubbit offers cut-price cloud with DS3 distributed storage

Cubbit’s DS3 offers cloud at up to 20% the cost of the main providers via on-premise software that builds a cloud with other users and targets unstructured data use cases such as backup Continue Reading
News 24 Jul 2023

CunoFS brings Posix file access to S3 object storage capacity

Developed out of data compression tools for genomics, PetaGene gateways allow application servers Posix-based file access to the deep data stores of S3 object capacity Continue Reading
Feature 19 Jul 2023

Backup in the age of cloud

The 3-2-1 backup strategy remains relevant in the age of cloud, giving rise to hybrid approaches that combine on-premise and cloud backups to minimise data loss, reduce downtime and improve redundancy Continue Reading
News 11 Jul 2023

NUS researchers develop biological camera to store images

NUS researchers have built a biological camera to store and organise images on live cells, potentially shaking up the data storage industry Continue Reading
Feature 28 Jun 2023

Hitachi Vantara: Small part of a big corp and analytics focus

We look at Hitachi Vantara, its storage, its cloud offer, the workloads it targets, and its efforts in containerisation and consumption models of storage purchasing Continue Reading
Feature 16 Jun 2023

Pure Storage: HDDs dead by 2028 and our flash will replace it

Pure Storage says spinning disk is doomed, and only it can provide a replacement. We look at the rationale behind its bold message, and the possible impacts of such a scenario Continue Reading
News 06 Jun 2023

ESA uses NetApp as-a-service for space data ‘hot’ archive

The European Space Agency collects data from millions of miles away. It must get storage right when there’s no chance of a u-turn to take more photos or re-record data Continue Reading
News 31 May 2023

Panasas to add S3 support to edge storage and cloud moves

Scale-out NAS maker – which specialises in large capacity for AI/ML and HPC – has come out of its on-prem shell and now plans further moves towards cloud-friendly object storage Continue Reading
News 16 May 2023

Scality pushes anti-ransomware features in Artesca object storage

Object storage specialist announces v2.0 of Artesca, with a heavy focus on functionality that can protect against ransomware such as object locking, sharding, backup to object etc Continue Reading
News 09 May 2023

OVHcloud aims to bring Glacier-like cloud archive to Europe

OVHcloud makes Cold Archive GA with deep archive storage cheaper than AWS’s offer and all based on IBM 3592 tape hardware spread across four sites with Atempo backup Continue Reading
News 25 Apr 2023

Veritas shows off software SAN for Kubernetes at KubeCON 2023

Veritas InfoScale aims to provide high-performance block access storage despite limitations such as a maximum node count of 16 per cluster Continue Reading
News 18 Apr 2023

IT Priorities 2023: Cloud and disaster recovery top storage and backup plans

Cloud storage still the biggest project planned in data storage in 2023, with disaster recovery the most important area in data protection cited by TechTarget/Computer Weekly survey respondents Continue Reading
News 04 Apr 2023

HPE launches GreenLake for File and Block, and unified arrays

HPE upgrades its storage-as-a-service offer with Greenlake for File and for Block, configurable via the cloud but deployable on-prem. Meanwhile it shows new Alletra MP arrays Continue Reading
News 28 Mar 2023

IBM Storage launched with backup appliance plan

Prosaically named brand will replace Spectrum products, while IBM rationalises offer for AI/ML, hybrid cloud and malware, which it sees as the backdrop to contemporary IT Continue Reading
News 05 Mar 2023

FlashBlade//E to open up new opportunities in Australia

Pure Storage’s FlashBlade//E will enable the storage supplier to target medical imaging and remote backup workloads and attract new customers in Australia Continue Reading
Feature 27 Feb 2023

Unstructured data and the storage it needs

We look at unstructured and semi-structured data and find increasing amounts of production workloads that have their own storage hardware – file and object – needs, including flash Continue Reading
News 20 Feb 2023

Veeam bundles backup products into Veeam Data Platform

Backup and data protection specialist Veeam upgrades and rebrands, with a focus on the challenges of ransomware and rapid recovery, and a claimed 500 new functions Continue Reading
Feature 07 Feb 2023

Container storage platforms: Big six approach starts to align

Container storage is a complex but vital task. We survey the big six storage makers and see methods are starting to align around management platforms Continue Reading
Feature 25 Jan 2023

Green storage: Savings to be made but tricky to achieve

Storage upgrades can bring energy savings. New hardware, the cloud and as-a-service procurement models all cut costs, but can need careful tweaking to get right Continue Reading
News 23 Jan 2023

NGX: Turkish arrays to challenge US mainstream storage vendors

Ankara-based NGX offers block, file and unified storage with use of cache and RAM to speed access. Software-defined storage, cloud and NVMe-over-fabrics are also coming Continue Reading
News 20 Jan 2023

Atempo plots course to containerised backup with S3 storage

Containerised modularised backup services will allow integration with third-party systems and backup storage unified onto S3 object storage for cost and analytics purposes Continue Reading
News 20 Dec 2022

Top 10 emerging storage trends stories of 2022

There’s a seismic shift to the cloud. In its wake, object storage, unstructured data, analytics, unified file and object, and consumption models of procurement have all been boosted Continue Reading
Feature 19 Dec 2022

Top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022

Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022 Continue Reading
Feature 30 Nov 2022

From capex to opex: Storage procurement options bloom

We look at the growing list of possibilities when it comes to paying for storage infrastructure, ranging from upfront purchases with upgrades to pure pay-as-you-go options Continue Reading
E-Zine 29 Nov 2022

How to stop data retention from killing the planet

In this week’s Computer Weekly, there’s a hidden environmental cost to the vast volumes of data being generated – we examine what can be done to address it. We talk to the CISO of consumer reviews site Trustpilot, about building trust in IT security. And we look at what IT leaders can do if they inherit a toxic team environment. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
News 28 Nov 2022

Panzura partners with AWS on ransomware counter-measures

Panzura might have slipped beneath the waves, but it’s come back reinvigorated, and now boasts integration with AWS with ransomware protection and Outposts hardware Continue Reading
News 22 Nov 2022

Pure aims at near bare metal I/O with Portworx PX-Fast

PX-Fast is driven by customer need for scale and high performance in containerised environments and sees reworking of Portworx data architecture to slash storage access time Continue Reading
Feature 22 Nov 2022

Cloud storage: Key storage specifications

We look at the key specs in cloud storage, including availability – such as five nines – bandwidth, IOPS and latency, capacity and tiering functionality, egress charges and security Continue Reading
Feature 18 Nov 2022

How to get structure from unstructured data

We look at how to gain structure from unstructured data, via AI/ML analytics to create new records, selecting object data via SQL and storing unstructured files in NoSQL formats Continue Reading
News 17 Nov 2022

Scality Ring 9 brings Storage Accelerator enhanced flash tiers

Scality upgrade to Ring 9 of its object (and file) storage software sees enhancements to tiering, the introduction of Prometheus-based monitoring and hooks into VMware vCloud Director Continue Reading
News 01 Nov 2022

NetApp launches BlueXP as single console across on-prem and cloud

BlueXP gives customers monitoring and control over all NetApp storage on-site and in multiple clouds. Meanwhile, its Ontap OS has added S3 object storage access Continue Reading
News 01 Nov 2022

Huawei pushes OceanStor’s Arm chip benefits at Paris love-in

Chinese giant trumpets green benefits on its Arm processor hardware with OceanStor Dorado V6 range, which offers huge capacities and performance at the high end Continue Reading
Feature 13 Oct 2022

Is object storage good for databases?

We look at object storage vs block access SAN storage and ask if object storage can be used for database workloads, or is it just good for bulk storage of analytics datasets? Continue Reading
News 13 Oct 2022

Bowled out: NVMe flash pioneer Pavilion Data ceases business

Last of the pioneer NVMe flash storage array makers, Pavilion made multiprotocol highs-speed boxes – but it seems to have run out of sources of investment and gone out of business Continue Reading
News 26 Sep 2022

PoINT to offer on-site S3 object storage archive on disk and tape

Archival Gateway can cluster up to 256 tape readers to provide S3 object storage clusters capable of storing 50 billion objects per bucket, and giving throughput of 230GBps Continue Reading
News 09 Sep 2022

Panasas’s double NAS offer aims at multiple analytics workloads

ActiveStor Flash and ActiveStor Ultra XL target I/O profiles from rapid AI/ML to processing-heavy modelling but remain firmly on-prem, with object and cloud declared ‘interesting’ Continue Reading
News 07 Sep 2022

VMware’s vSAN 8 gets a rebuild for the solid-state storage era

At VMware Explore 2022, we interview VMware’s John Gilmartin about the new, faster vSAN, plans to use DPUs, the vSAN+ cloud offering, and VMware Ransomware Recovery Continue Reading
News 15 Aug 2022

Lightbits offers NVMe-over-TCP at 5x less than NVMe-over-FC et al

Lightbits builds NVMe-overTCP SAN clusters for Linux servers with Intel cards that accelerate network processing to give millions of IOPS with storage for public and private clouds Continue Reading
Podcast 05 Aug 2022

Podcast: How storage AIOps is revolutionising hybrid cloud ops

We talk to Tintri about storage and AIOps, which is the application of AI and machine learning-based software to monitor storage infrastructure to be able to detect patterns and predict failure, the need to upgrade, and so on Continue Reading
Podcast 03 Aug 2022

Podcast: Storage at the edge – impact and opportunities

We talk to Tobias Flitsch of Nebulon about the rise of edge computing and how that will drive demand for more storage that needs to be secure and resilient and centrally manageable Continue Reading
Feature 29 Jul 2022

Unstructured data storage – on-prem vs cloud vs hybrid

We look at storage for unstructured data on-premise, in the cloud and across multiple locations. There are advantages to a hybrid approach, but there can be hidden costs, too Continue Reading
News 21 Jul 2022

Four key need-to-knows about CXL

Compute Express Link will pool multiple types of memory and so allow much higher memory capacities and the possibility of rapidly composable infrastructure to meet the needs of varied workloads Continue Reading
News 13 Jul 2022

NHS trust cuts costs and refresh cycle with Wasabi cloud storage

Imperial College NHS Trust expects to saves 30% in storage costs and cut back on five-year refresh headaches in a move that has seen backup and archive data move to the Wasabi cloud Continue Reading
Feature 01 Jul 2022

File, block and object: Storage fundamentals in the cloud era

We look at the three basic ways that storage accesses data – via file, block and object – as well as the ways in which the rise of the cloud and distributed systems have brought changes to them Continue Reading
Podcast 21 Jun 2022

Podcast: The legacy and modern apps that drive object storage

We talk to object (and file) storage vendor Scality about the ways the application and development environment is changing and how that is driving object storage Continue Reading
Feature 17 Jun 2022

Data gravity: What is it and how to manage it

Data gravity can attract increasing amounts of data, and brings with it onerous management overheads. We look at how to mitigate data gravity in datacentre and cloud Continue Reading
Feature 14 Jun 2022

Unified file and object storage: Three suppliers and their approaches

We look at unified file and object storage products from NetApp, Pure Storage and Scality, the differences, the workloads aimed at, and how unified they actually are Continue Reading
News 08 Jun 2022

Pure FlashBlade//S and Evergreen//Flex boost as-a-service push

FlashBlade//S brings two new arrays in which customers can upgrade controllers and capacity, while //Flex allows capacity to be bought and moved across any QLC or TLC Pure array Continue Reading
Feature 01 Jun 2022

Four obstacles to hybrid cloud storage – and possible solutions

We look at obstacles to hybrid cloud storage, such as complexity, a need for object storage, application suitability, and cost, with potential ways to mitigate the problems Continue Reading
News 18 May 2022

Veeam to continue growth momentum in APAC

Veeam expects its backup offerings that protect ‘strategic workloads’ such as Microsoft 365 and Salesforce to continue driving its growth momentum in the region Continue Reading
News 18 May 2022

Portworx adds anti-ransomware to PX-Backup for Kubernetes

Pure’s Kubernetes storage and data protection platform adds object locking to combat ransomware Continue Reading
News 17 May 2022

Video effects firm cuts costs by 20% and goes hybrid with Hammerspace

Jellyfish Pictures saves on rising power and office space costs, as well as Brexit difficulties, by using Hammerspace to allow access to large files from any geographic location Continue Reading
News 11 May 2022

Pure to offer on-prem object storage as Snowflake data source

Pure Storage partnership with Snowflake will see the cloud data warehousing platform make use of on-prem FlashBlade fast file and object storage as a source for analytics data Continue Reading
News 09 May 2022

Ctera opens up its storage to third-party analytics via APIs

File system software builds pools of NAS-like storage accessible from anywhere, with APIs to third-party tools to interrogate data for business processes, anomaly detection and more Continue Reading
News 04 May 2022

PeerGFS to add AI/ML anomaly detection to distributed file system product

Peer will add AI/ML-based anomaly detection as it ramps up security protection in its PeerGFS distributed file management software, with Linux server support also to come in 2022 Continue Reading
Feature 08 Apr 2022

Storage requirements for AI, ML and analytics in 2022

We look at what is needed for artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the pros and cons of block, file and object storage to store and access very large amounts of often unstructured data Continue Reading
Podcast 07 Apr 2022

Pure says unstructured data needs storage scale and performance

Podcast: Pure Storage says huge growth of unstructured data and its diversity means storage has to be able to scale with it and offer performance to gain insights Continue Reading
News 24 Mar 2022

Ad agency slashes NetApp costs with Datadobi data migration

US-based branding agency needed to migrate 20TB of large files to new NetApp hardware, but unwilling to stomach the vendor’s migration costs it chose Datadobi instead Continue Reading
Feature 17 Mar 2022

Storage suppliers put Kubernetes platforms centre stage

How to orchestrate the orchestrator? Storage suppliers’ Kubernetes management platforms aim to meet storage and data protection challenge in containerised application environments Continue Reading
E-Zine 15 Mar 2022

How the tech sector is supporting Ukraine

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine the global tech sector response to the invasion of Ukraine, and how hackers are responding to calls for an IT army to target Russia. Our latest buyer’s guide looks at cloud-based ERP and other business applications. And IBM’s UK chief tells us how Big Blue is reinventing itself. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
Feature 09 Mar 2022

Five key points on file locking vs object locking

We look at file vs object storage locking mechanisms, how different forms of storage ensure data consistency, and especially how object storage is tackling the challenge Continue Reading
News 22 Feb 2022

Hammerspace offers follow-the-sun access to on-prem and cloud storage

Startup aims to succeed where others have failed and present file, block and object storage data from any and multiple locations as if it were local to the user Continue Reading
Feature 21 Feb 2022

Storage and 5G: Big impacts likely as wide-area topologies evolve

Enterprise 5G will boost the need for storage generally. It will also push capacity needs closer to the edge and create new locations for processing and storage Continue Reading
E-Zine 14 Feb 2022

On a mission to track space junk

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we talk to the space experts tracking orbital debris using graph database technology. We meet the startups taking very different approaches in trying to develop commercial quantum computers. And we ask why it’s so difficult to build a data science team and how to overcome the challenges. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
Feature 09 Feb 2022

Posix vs object storage: How much longer for Posix?

We look at Posix compliance in storage and why it is being challenged by object storage and the need to scale much further than Posix-oriented storage was ever intended to Continue Reading
Feature 07 Feb 2022

How open source is shaping data storage management

Open source data storage offers a great deal of flexibility, but unlocking its benefits will require strong technical resources to meet requirements such as stability, high availability and security Continue Reading
News 07 Feb 2022

TV provider MediaHub boots SAN and NAS for Scality object storage

Sydney-based TV content provider MediaHub got tired of performance issues and scaling difficulties with SAN and NAS, so powered its as-a-service offer with Scality object storage Continue Reading
Feature 28 Jan 2022

Cloud storage data residency: How to achieve compliance

There’s a conflict between cloud storage and the need to comply with local laws and regulations. We look at cloud data location, data residency, data sovereignty and data adequacy Continue Reading
Feature 24 Jan 2022

Object storage: How research institute got 850TB for €150,000

French scientific research institute had its budgets cut and to meet the new cost constraints, it settled on Swarm software-defined object storage from DataCore Continue Reading
Feature 22 Dec 2021

Scale-up vs scale-out: Horizontal vs vertical scaling for storage

We look at the differences between scale-up and scale-out in storage – or horizontal vs vertical scaling – and the key ways it can be carried out on-prem and in the cloud Continue Reading
News 14 Dec 2021

IT priorities 2022: Ransomware and cloud drive storage and backup

The pandemic and the move to the cloud has driven cloud storage as a key priority Continue Reading
E-Zine 18 Nov 2021

CW APAC: Expert guide to storage management

The storage landscape is evolving at pace. In this handbook, focused on storage management in the Asia-Pacific region, Computer Weekly looks at how firms are rising to the storage challenge, Lenovo’s viewpoint on the region’s market opportunities, how the Malaysian Highway Authority made itself more cyber secure and the advantages of Nexustorage’s latest offering Continue Reading
News 10 Nov 2021

Vast Data: Big shifts promised for an AI future

Purveyor of Universal Storage says AI and GPU-based compute will dominate, and is set to benefit with its (relatively) cheap, deep and quick QLC-plus-Optane offer Continue Reading
News 20 Oct 2021

Spectra Logic unveils Vail hybrid cloud storage virtualisation

Vail provides single pool of storage overlay to on-premise flash, disk and tape, plus cloud via object storage interface with Posix-compliance promised in future releases Continue Reading
Feature 13 Oct 2021

APAC expert guide to storage management

In this expert guide to storage management in Asia-Pacific, we unpack the developments shaping storage management and key strategies to extract business value from data Continue Reading
News 12 Oct 2021

NetApp adds CloudCheckr to Spot portfolio

CloudCheckr brings multi-cloud audit capabilities as well as visibility of security and governance in an acquisition that adds to its cloud price optimisation in the Spot portfolio Continue Reading
Feature 07 Oct 2021

French Caisse uses NetApp to move backups to object storage

State financial arm wanted to move backups held on NAS file-based storage to object storage, so stuck with NetApp StorageGRID and achieved near-seamless migration Continue Reading
News 04 Oct 2021

Nexustorage aims at file and block access to object storage

New Zealand-based startup to release Nexfs, which chops files into sub-file chunks and tiers them off to cheap and deep object stores with NFS and iSCSAI access for Posix applications Continue Reading
Feature 08 Sep 2021

Dell, NetApp and Pure: Healthy results on Covid easing

Dell’s still top of the storage supplier pile with midrange arrays doing well, but meanwhile NetApp and Pure are making gains on the rise of public cloud Continue Reading
Feature 19 Jul 2021

Storage-as-a-service: Consumption models from the big six

We look at the big six storage makers’ consumption model offers, which allow customers to pay for on-prem hardware and cloud storage capacity on a pay-per-use basis, within limits Continue Reading
Feature 16 Jul 2021

Briefing: Cloud storage performance metrics

We look at some of the key storage performance metrics that determine what your applications will get from cloud storage, plus cloud essentials that are beyond simple measurement Continue Reading
News 07 Jul 2021

Flexify brings virtualisation layer to multi-cloud storage

Cloud storage virtualisation provider allows application access via S3 API calls to a single destination while capacity can be in numerous clouds with migration between them Continue Reading
Feature 30 Jun 2021

Lakehouse concept aims to merge data lake and data warehouse

Data lakes are big, amorphous and difficult to access, while data warehouses are costly and aimed at structured data. The data lakehouse aims at analytics in an age of unstructured data Continue Reading
News 25 Jun 2021

France TV repatriates backup and archive from public cloud

France Télévisions Publicité couldn’t always get to critical data, so decided to repatriate backup and archiving from the cloud to on-site locations, with help from a managed service Continue Reading
Feature 23 Jun 2021

Cloud storage APIs: What are they and what can be done with them?

We look at the kinds of application programming interfaces (APIs) available to expose cloud storage to applications, from SME-targeted solutions to higher-end hooks Continue Reading
Feature 16 Jun 2021

Storage performance metrics: Five key areas to look at

We look at the essentials in storage performance metrics: capacity, throughput and read/write capability, IOPS and latency, and hardware longevity measured by failure rates Continue Reading
E-Zine 08 Jun 2021

The jobseekers turning to cyber crime in the pandemic

In this week’s Computer Weekly, security researchers say people left unemployed by the pandemic are turning to cyber crime – we find out why. We examine the confluence of distributed cloud and edge computing technologies. And controversial uses of facial recognition technology come under further scrutiny. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
News 25 May 2021

Valence brings storage virtualisation for the cloud era

Startup 22dot6 launches Valence, software-defined storage that throws a virtualisation layer over any backend storage via multiple nodes that split metadata and storage services Continue Reading
Feature 20 May 2021

What digital transformation means for data storage

We survey the key planks of digital transformation and look at the storage technologies emerging to support it, such as NVMe and QLC flash, hyper-converged infrastructure and cloud storage Continue Reading
News 27 Apr 2021

Scality launches Artesca container-native object storage

Object storage specialist gets on a burgeoning container object storage market with Artesca, which runs from Kubernetes to provide persistent storage for containerised applications Continue Reading
News 12 Apr 2021

Ctera KubeFiler to bring Kubernetes storage to its cloud gateways

KubeFiler uses the container storage interface to allow Kubernetes to access persistent storage as if it were from a local NAS device, and while keeping existing access profiles Continue Reading
Feature 06 Apr 2021

Where now for storage? Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage

Part II: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models Continue Reading
Feature 06 Apr 2021

Where now for storage? Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE

Part I: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models Continue Reading
Feature 26 Mar 2021

Backup appliances the hot topic for Pas-de-Calais fire brigade

With requirements for strict, long-duration backup and archiving, French fire brigade set out to replace optical media with a StorageCraft appliance and disaster-proof storage Continue Reading
News 04 Mar 2021

Veritas looks beyond NetBackup for growth in ASEAN

Veritas has seen increased demand for its availability tools as it looks to address backup and recovery requirements from cloud, database and VMware workloads Continue Reading
News 03 Mar 2021

UK’s Arkivum up for €4.8m EU science data archive project

CERN-led multi-petabyte scale research data archive bid will use Google cloud and compete with AWS-based and open source designs from other providers Libnova and Onedata Continue Reading