Unstructured data

The explosion of unstructured data growth has tasked organizations with not only managing and storing application data but also with gaining insights from that data while keeping costs under control. This is no simple task.

According to IDC, over the next five years, more than 80% of data organizations collect will be unstructured data (i.e. file and object-based data), and that will continue to grow 40-50% per year for most enterprises ^[1]. Concurrently, Gartner estimates that by 2026, large enterprises will triple their unstructured data capacity stored as file or object storage on-premises, at the edge or in the public cloud ^[2].

Organizations are realizing the need for a modern solution to harness, secure and manage data so all of their data can continuously deliver business value. Yet how do organizations prioritize their data requirements when it comes to budgeting and resources?

Justifying IT Investments

The most important IT investment considerations in the near future include improving cybersecurity, digital transformation, business processes, compliance, and return on investment, according to a recent report from ESG^[3]. For many organizations, the analyst firm notes, the top priority is simply to manage the scale of data with cost and operational efficiency. These are the most popular approaches:

• Introducing public cloud capacity for storing volumes of data at low cost
• Adding capacity to existing siloed technology products

However, these approaches alone can lead to fragmented data as well as inhibit visibility and ultimately increase costs and budgets. There’s a more effective way to harness unstructured data for business value.

Introducing Cohesity SmartFiles

Cohesity SmartFiles is a software-defined, data-centric, multiprotocol file and object solution for enterprises. A data service that runs on the Cohesity Helios platform, SmartFiles transcends legacy storage-focused solutions by delivering management ease for volumes of data, seamless scale, storage efficiency, integrated applications, multi-layered cybersecurity and multi-tiered data management.

SmartFiles is a modern unstructured data management solution that meets the need for highly scalable data management to power digital transformation journeys. Businesses already using the solution today enjoy unlimited scalability, native multiprotocol support, simplified operations, policy-based automation, and built-in global search, along with many integrated apps that run on the data in-place.

SmartFiles also offers robust data security and protection, metadata-based intelligence, and modern hybrid and multi cloud support built in. It is hardware agnostic and can be easily deployed on any choice of hardware to optimize cost of ownership benefits.

In a recent analysis, ESG Research used what they learned from SmartFiles customer interviews to validate the ability to consolidate files and objects from application data silos with SmartFiles – a more cost effective and simpler-to-manage solution that greatly eases data management while accelerating the time to find and retrieve data for the business from days or even weeks to minutes. Indeed, ESG found that organizations can lower their expected total cost of ownership by up to 51% with SmartFiles versus continuing to operate siloed storage deployments. Furthermore, they found that SmartFiles can help to avoid CapEx spend, lower power, cooling, and floorspace costs, reduce support and maintenance costs, and free up significant time for administrators. This resulted in an expected return on investment of 354% to 593%.

Some of the most popular use cases of SmartFiles include:

Figure: SmartFiles use cases

The Benefits of Deploying SmartFiles on HPE

• Streamlines infrastructure by eliminating silos and offloading infrequently accessed data, reducing the need to purchase additional hardware
• Embeds and refines business insights by analyzing data in-place
• Simplifies operations by consolidating data and governing it holistically and automatically
• Enables seamless scale while linearly maintaining performance
• Future-proofs with a flexible and ultra-scalable data management platform
• Optimizes choice and flexibility by allowing organizations to acquire and deploy the solution on their terms – based on a CapEx or OpEx investment, and managed independently or through HPE GreenLake
• Improves efficiency for 2x-3x overall space savings based on Cohesity’s SnapTree technology
• Boosts cyber resilience by consolidating data and reducing vulnerabilities as well as strengthening data protection with capabilities such as WORM, erasure coding, data isolation, immutable snapshots and more.

Why Cohesity and HPE?

HPE and Cohesity have been working together for years, in a multi-faceted partnership that began with an early HPE investment in Cohesity through the Pathfinder Program and which then progressed to a strong OEM relationship. The partnership continues to gain momentum with rapid customer adoption and revenue growth, technology innovation and a growing cloud community.

Today, jointly certified Cohesity data management software is available on HPE Apollo and HPE ProLiant Gen 10 servers, empowering customers to simplify backup and recovery as well as do more with their backup and unstructured data, advancing the HPE Intelligent Data Platform that is AI-driven and built for cloud with as-a-service capabilities. Customers enjoy the convenience of having HPE as a one-stop shop for procurement and support of the joint solution.

Cohesity and HPE have continuing R&D investment programs in place for product integrations and prioritize customer success through joint GTM programs, campaigns, and marketing funds. Both companies are members of the Cloud 28+ community for best practices and knowledge sharing with peers and tech evangelists.

Learn more about SmartFiles:

• Visit the Cohesity website.
• Hear us at HPE Discover in a breakout session dedicated to Smartfiles. (Add the session to your calendar now!)
• Drop by the Cohesity booth (#226) at HPE Discover for a special demonstration

Helpful Resources:

1. Cohesity SmartFiles Breaks into The Top Echelon of File & Object Solutions
2. SmartFiles Solutions Brief
3. Technology Assessment by IDC – Cohesity SmartFiles: Efficiently Tackles Unstructured Data
4. The Economic Benefits of Managing Unstructured Data with Cohesity
5. Partnership Overview
6. SmartFiles 101

[1] Intelligent CIO article

[2] 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage.

[3] ESG Economic Validation: Benefits of Managing Unstructured Data with Cohesity SmartFiles

Author:

Joanna Paul

Senior Solutions Marketing Manager, Cohesity

Seattle, WA, USA

Joanna Paul leads the Cohesity | HPE Solution Marketing efforts for Cohesity. A seasoned technology marketing professional, Joanna is passionate about providing compelling value propositions and creating high value content.

joanna.paul@cohesity.com

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