Analyst(s): Camberley Bates
Publication Date: January 10, 2025
VAST Data’s Version 5.2 introduces significant enhancements to its storage platform, including the innovative EBox architecture, a 4x improvement in write performance, and robust replication features for seamless data resilience. Tailored for AI and hyperscale deployments, the update also integrates event-driven automation and global namespace management.
What is Covered in this Article:
- The introduction and functionality of the EBox architecture
- Enhanced write performance and its implications for AI workloads
- New replication features: synchronous and asynchronous replication
- Automation via S3 event publishing and advanced namespace management
- How these updates cater to AI and hyperscale storage needs
The News: VAST Data has released Version 5.2 of its storage platform, a major update focused on meeting the demands of AI-driven and hyperscale environments. Key highlights include the introduction of the EBox hardware architecture, which enhances scalability and flexibility for diverse deployment scenarios.
Additional improvements, such as a doubling of write performance, advanced replication features, and event-driven automation, reflect the company’s dedication to delivering cutting-edge solutions for modern storage challenges.
The update extends VAST’s capabilities into public cloud environments, allowing organizations to benefit from robust data resilience, high availability, and optimized performance. These features are complemented by enhanced global namespace control, ensuring efficient data access and consistency across geographically distributed clusters.
VAST Data 5.2: Advancing AI-Ready Storage with Performance and Resilience
Analyst Take: VAST Data Version 5.2 demonstrates an alignment with the needs of AI and hyperscale environments, where performance, scalability, and resilience are critical. The EBox architecture offers flexibility and fault tolerance in hardware-constrained or virtualized deployments. Additionally, the doubling of write performance positions VAST as addressing data-intensive workloads, particularly in AI and machine learning applications.
The inclusion of synchronous replication brings a higher level of data resilience, providing enterprises and cloud providers with solutions for mission-critical applications. Event-driven automation and enhanced namespace management further reduce operational overhead.
Advancements in Hardware: The EBox Architecture
A notable feature in the company’s Version 5.2 is the introduction of the EBox, or Everything Box, a hardware innovation that redefines flexibility in deploying the VAST Data Platform. The EBox integrates CNode and DNode containers to provide both storage management and user request processing. This architecture allows every SSD in the cluster to be mounted to every CNode, ensuring seamless connectivity and high availability.
The EBox architecture is tailored for hyperscale environments and cloud providers with specific configurations. It accommodates deployments with vendors such as Supermicro and Cisco while also enabling functionality in virtualized environments such as Google Cloud Platform. Notably, EBox clusters employ the DBox-HA data layout, ensuring operational continuity even with EBox failures. In addition to hardware resilience, the EBox architecture simplifies cluster management by minimizing dependencies on specific hardware components.
Performance Optimization: Write Speeds
VAST Data’s write optimization enhancements introduced in Version 5.1 were accomplished through their mirroring write buffers in storage-class memory (SCM) to double parity erasure codes. With 5.2, they have added writing to SCM and QLC in parallel. They are sending bursts of large writes to the QLC in a cluster. The flash wear is said to be insignificant, but performance improved by 4X. Some of the rationales behind the capability is to address the speed and lessen the interruption of checkpointing for AI training.
Enhanced Data Resilience: Synchronous and Asynchronous Replication
Version 5.2 introduces new data replication mechanisms. Synchronous replication: this enables paired clusters to maintain consistent data states by replicating updates in real-time. Any data written to one cluster is immediately acknowledged by the paired cluster before confirmation to the client, offering near-zero downtime for mission-critical applications.
Complementing synchronous replication is an enhancement to VAST’s asynchronous replication capabilities. This feature supports native database tables, ensuring transactional consistency during replication.
Unified Data Management: Event Automation and Namespace Control
VAST Data introduces S3 event publishing, laying the groundwork for event-driven workflows. This feature allows administrators to configure events triggered by changes in bucket or folder contents. These events are currently integrated with external Kafka topics, enabling users to subscribe to relevant updates and automate follow-up actions. Future releases are expected to introduce native event brokers, streamlining the automation process further.
Version 5.2 also improves global namespace management, providing consistent data access across multiple clusters. The platform ensures that global folders maintain full read-write access, with satellite clusters caching data locally for efficient performance. New cache control features allow administrators to prefetch metadata or data changes, addressing delays associated with cache warming. This is particularly beneficial for workflows that span on-premises and cloud environments, where seamless data transitions are critical.
Looking Forward
VAST Data Version 5.2 introduces additional capabilities for AI workloads, with performance and business continuity capabilities. The EBox architecture and enhanced writing capabilities show promise.
As VAST expands into the public cloud and refines its platform, the next implementation phases will reveal whether these advancements can consistently deliver value or face challenges in scalability and adaptability. This period will be pivotal in determining VAST’s position in the competitive storage market.
What to Watch:
- The EBox architecture could potentially gain traction among hyperscale and cloud providers seeking scalable and resilient solutions.
- The 4x improvement may attract AI and machine learning users to optimize high-volume workloads.
- VAST’s EBox integration with the Google Cloud Platform is likely to drive further adoption in public cloud environments.
- Native event brokers and enhanced S3 event publishing are potentially on the horizon, simplifying workflows.
- Rivals may introduce similar advancements in replication, namespace management, and performance to remain competitive.
See the complete press release of VAST Data Introducing Version 5.2 on the VAST Data website.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Now retired, Camberley brought over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
