Cohesity SmartFiles: Advanced Cloud and Hybrid Data Management Platform

Cohesity SmartFiles is a Modern Data Management Platform for the Cloud and Hybrid Era

Data growth is exploding, with 80% of data being unstructured. Gartner estimates data will grow by 800% over the next five years, and traditional NAS systems are not well-suited for managing this data in cloud and hybrid IT environments, leading to data silos, fragmentation, and increased costs, complexity, and risk.

Cohesity SmartFiles is a new data management platform that addresses these challenges beyond traditional file and object platforms. It provides a unified solution for on-premises, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments and can help organizations reduce costs, improve efficiency, and reduce risk.

Cohesity SmartFiles is a new data management platform that is more flexible, scalable, secure, and efficient than traditional NAS solutions. It is part of the Cohesity Helios data platform and offers many advantages over conventional NAS, including:

• Software-defined architecture for greater flexibility and choice
• Data-centric focus for more control over data
• Multiprotocol support for easy integration into existing IT environments

Traditional NAS systems are focused on storing data, while Cohesity SmartFiles focuses on managing data. This means you don’t need to move data to different applications to manage it because the applications and data are integrated into the same platform, simplifying and reducing the cost of managing your data.

Cohesity SmartFiles also includes a marketplace of apps and machine learning-assisted management, which makes it even easier to manage your data and get insights from it. This sets Cohesity SmartFiles apart from traditional NAS appliances, which can be complex and challenging to manage, especially at scale.

SmartFiles offers you the freedom to choose, works well with many systems, is easy to manage without worries, has built-in security, allows you to search across your entire business locations, and saves you money on storage.

SmartFiles is a software-defined platform that allows you to choose the proper hardware for your needs, matching capacity, performance, and task cost. It’s not just about now but about future-proofing your data workloads. SmartFiles ensures your workloads aren’t tied to specific hardware or data centers. It can run in the cloud just like it does on-site, and transitioning to the cloud is simple with its native S3 protocol and unified NFS and SMB protocols for on-site and cloud use.

SmartFiles’ broad compatibility means it works well with various operating systems and hybrid cloud setups. It smoothly handles file permissions for both NFS and SMB, allowing easy access. You can access files and objects simultaneously, always available through S3. Whether you’re using Windows, Linux, Unix, or the cloud, SmartFiles understands and makes managing mixed environments simple with smooth data sharing.

Stress-Free operation: With an easy-to-use interface, Cohesity SmartFiles simplifies your experience right from the start. It lets you quickly focus on important tasks or even take some time to relax. The machine-learning management acts like an intelligent assistant, saving you time by handling complex tasks. Moving data is a breeze with Cohesity’s backup solution, making migrations simple and efficient. You can automate operations easily using APIs. You save costs by automatically moving less-used data to more affordable storage. With defined policies, you maintain consistent management. Managing your data is straightforward, no matter where it is located or what type. Cohesity SmartFiles takes away the stress and complications of traditional scale-out NAS.

Integrated Apps: Put all your NAS tools in one place with Cohesity Helios. It handles virus checks, file audits, and content searches all in one platform without needing extra setups. It can spot unusual file access patterns from file records and lets you easily search the contents of files for compliance and security. SmartFiles saves you money by consolidating NAS tools into one platform and reduces the effort needed to manage NAS hardware.

Safeguard Your Data: Protecting your data from cyber threats is essential, not just a choice—it’s a necessity. SmartFiles combines security measures seamlessly, making it easy to set up and manage. The approach involves multiple layers to prevent, detect, and analyze potential threats:

• Prevent: Implement an unchangeable file system, software encryption, encryption over communication, multi-factor authentication, DataLock (WORM), and comply with FIPS 140-1 and 140-2 standards.
• Detect: Use anti-virus measures to identify and stop infected files, preventing compromises.
• Analyze: Employ user and behavior analytics to monitor security and ensure compliance.

For added security of valuable SmartFiles data, Cohesity DataGovern offers AI-powered governance and threat detection. Cohesity’s threat defense architecture is a service platform working across all workloads to help you accurately discover threats to sensitive data across all your applications—whether in the cloud or on-premises. It ensures strict compliance and enables rapid response and recovery from ransomware and other cyber threats.”

Efficient Enterprise Search: Imagine a business search experience like Google’s. Our enterprise search covers all your data, regardless of where it’s stored. It’s not just a simple search; it’s thorough and data-focused. Quickly find what you need by searching through file details and content, thanks to our indexing. Unlike traditional NAS, you can use these search results for data-driven decisions based on the actual data, not just its descriptions. Data is no longer hidden—it’s a valuable asset for intelligent operations. With a single search, explore your entire enterprise and access data from various sources, including silos, VMs, backups, data centers, remote sites, and multiple clouds.

Affordable Storage: SmartFiles offers cost-effective options by being software-defined. It minimizes hardware storage needs using data-saving techniques like deduplication, compression, and small file optimization. Additionally, it deduplicates data across different data center volumes. You can cut storage expenses by moving data from high-cost Tier 1 storage to a more budget-friendly Cohesity tier.

Let’s delve into this technology. Data Efficiency Features:

1. Data Deduplication: SmartFiles uses advanced sliding window variable deduplication tech, deduping even slightly modified duplicate data, going beyond traditional capabilities.
2. Compression: Employs Zstandard compression for high compression ratios.
3. Small File Optimization: This avoids the typical “small file amplification” penalty seen in traditional NAS systems. Small files are stored efficiently without needing triple-mirroring, accurately utilizing space.
4. Cross-Volume Deduplication: Unlike typical NAS systems, SmartFiles deduplicates data across different storage volumes and application silos in the data center, eliminating duplicate data that may persist in traditional silo-by-silo deduplication.

Effortless Data Transfer: Move your old, unused data from storage platforms like NetApp, Dell/EMC Isilon, or Pure Storage seamlessly to Cohesity or a cloud tier without disrupting your applications. This smooth transition leads to significant and immediate reductions in storage costs.

There are dozens of workloads and use cases in which SmartFiles provides benefits. Amongst these use cases are: