The DataCore Swarm system is a mature object storage system for private and public cloud usage and as a target archive system. Originally called CAStor, Swarm was developed by Caringo, acquired by DataCore in 2021. Swarm is delivered as software for x86 servers, or on Swarm Server hardware appliances. The scale out architecture allows the configuration to dynamically scale very large with commensurate performance. Swarm has implemented a symmetric parallel architecture that operates to manage the nodes as a distributed cluster. Nodes are automatically discovered and rebalancing occurs after booting from a network. All executing software is maintained in RAM on each node to enhance performance.
The system includes SwarmFS to provide file access to the underlying object storage using NFSv4 or SMB. FileFly is used to migrate data to Swarm from Windows and Linux file servers and NetApp ONTAP systems over CIFS/SMB or NFS.
Direct object access is accomplished by use of the S3 API, and a superset of S3 called Simple Content Storage Protocol (SCSP), which conforms to HTTP1.1 and an HDFS connector. Geographic data distribution and protection is standard through sub-clusters on the same latency network. For remote clusters, Feeds (routing function) automates the routing of objects for data distribution and data protection. Feeds are latency tolerant and take advantage of the full cluster-to cluster capability of the system.
Key competitors include IBM Cloud Object Storage, Scality Ring, Cloudian HyperStore, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage, and NetApp StorageGRID WebScale.
DataCore Swarm Product Analysis Includes:
- Highlights
- Overview
- Product Architecture
- Software Architecture
- Data Protection and Security
- Advanced Features
- File Access
- Reliability, Availability, Serviceability Features
- Evaluator Group Comments
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