A primer
Who is Maginatics?
Maginatics is an emerging leader in distributed enterprise storage solutions. We provide enterprises with distributed, scalable and secure data storage in their own data center or in the cloud.
What is the Maginatics Cloud Storage Platform?
The Maginatics Cloud Storage Platform (MCSP) is a new breed of storage technology that has been natively designed for software-defined data centers and the cloud, providing enterprises with an unparalleled
solution to manage their growing unstructured data while enabling agile IT and business growth.
At the foundation of MCSP is our flagship product, the Maginatics Virtual Filer (MVF). MVF is an elastic cloud-optimized distributed file system that combines a global namespace, strong data consistency, WAN optimization, end-to-end security, application compatibility, edge and mobile connectivity and other technologies into a single integrated fabric.
Key attributes:
• Built specifically for the cloud • End-to-end security
• Modular and scalable • Highly distributed • Intelligent clients
• Optimized for mobile and remote access
Figure 1: Maginatics Cloud Storage Platform
Why a Cloud Storage Platform?
We listened to the market. Based on the challenges faced by enterprise customers in managing their unstructured data, coupled with the evolving industry trends around software-defined data center
architectures and cloud storage, we saw the need for a next-generation data storage architecture that could address these challenges.
Our key differentiators are:
1. Scalability: MCSP is a software-only technology built from the
ground up to fully leverage the scalability of cloud (object) storage. Enterprises no longer need to rip and replace racks of expensive hardware to scale to the needs of their users.
push intelligence to the edge and optimize for any remote or mobile client endpoint device (PC, laptop, server, iOS, Android, VM or phone running Windows, OSX, Linux, or even a Web Browser). Optimizations include fine-grained encryption, global deduplication, aggressive encrypted local caching and many more.
3. Decentralized access with centralized management: Strong data
consistency and security with full-spectrum caching.
What are some of the architectural and
operational bottlenecks of other data storage
technologies available today?
Typically, legacy data storage solutions have featured monolithic architectures and have been designed to scale-up incrementally. With the transition to software-defined data centers and workload migration into the cloud, this legacy paradigm introduces tremendous challenges related to scale, performance, cost and day-to-day operations. Because of their design, these legacy solutions present a bottleneck, making them unsuitable for the evolving enterprise that is highly distributed, largely virtualized and in need of extreme scalability.
These legacy architectures rely on data replication to support multiple locations, a process which is inefficient from a capacity perspective and costly as file storage systems are bought for each location.
Other emerging cloud storage technologies have stepped in to fill this role but often run into their own inefficiencies as they either fail to provide enterprise prerequisites such as reliable file locking and application compatibility, or replace one point of management and potential bottle-neck with another by introducing yet another appliance into the mix.
endpoint device. The Maginatics Cloud Storage Platform is the leading example of a storage solution that meets these needs.
What are the components of the Maginatics
Cloud Storage Platform?
There are three foundational components that comprise MCSP (see figure 2).
Figure 2: Maginatics Cloud Storage Platform foundational components 1. Maginatics Virtual Filer:
The MVF does not host data and therefore does not present a dataflow bottleneck seen with a monolithic appliance . Instead, the Maginatics Virtual Filer hosts metadata (including all encryption keys) and acts as a gatekeeper to the data, which is hosted in the cloud.
Today you can grow to a cluster of 10 MVFs enabling you to address up to 14.4 PB of unique data. Within a cluster, any MVF can be promoted to the role of the Maginatics Virtual Filer Management Console allowing you to create, edit, delete and monitor your shares and the VMs that power them from a single pane of glass.
2. Maginatics MagFS Agent:
Maginatics provides native agents for popular operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS and Android and supports endpoint devices that range from mobile clients and laptops, to servers and virtual machines. The client takes full advantage of the power and functionality of modern devices and does much of the heavy lifting in the system (in concert with the Maginatics Virtual Filer), including WAN optimization, fine-grained end-to-end encryption and file segmentation and re-assembly. The use of endpoint agents allows MCSP to deliver security, scalability and control throughout the entire system: in the cloud, on the endpoint devices, and in-flight. By allowing endpoint devices to communicate directly with the cloud (as well as the Maginatics Virtual Filer)
over their own secure connection, MCSP delivers a distributed architecture that removes the bottlenecks associated with legacy or emerging technologies that are based on monolithic appliances. 3. Object Storage:
Object storage is highly cost-effective, simple to deploy and scalable, supporting billions of objects per namespace. This scalability
was one of the critical driving factors behind Maginatics’ decision to select object-based storage as the backend for MCSP. With
How do customers typically use the Maginatics
Cloud Storage Platform?
Enterprises typically deploy MCSP to replace or consolidate some of their traditional NAS appliances in the cloud (private, public or hybrid), to gain the benefits of a “filer-on-demand” service, to migrate scale-out workloads to the cloud, and to deliver mobile and edge connectivity to maximize the productivity of their distributed environment.
How will the Maginatics Cloud Storage Platform
benefit customers?
MCSP integrates with virtually any public, private or hybrid cloud to deliver key benefits to customers including:
• Achieving massive scale-out in the cloud; • Simplifying operations to enable agile IT; • Managing large amounts of unstructured data;
• Improving productivity via remote access to centralized data; • Delivering seamless, secure, mobile access to data;
• Significantly reducing TCO.
