What is unstructured data management?
We define it as software that allows enterprises to easily analyze, classify, mobilize and monetize file and object data across storage and clouds without shackling data to any vendor. Enterprises need it because of the growth and complexity of unstructured data that drives up costs and risks plus the expanding need to leverage it safely and accurately in AI.
In our annual survey, we found that:
- Nearly 50% of enterprises are storing more than 5PB of unstructured data and nearly 30% have more than 10PB.
- The top priorities for data storage include cost optimization (54%), preparing for AI (51%) and investing in data management and data mobility (41%).
- Moving data without disruption to users/apps is the top technical unstructured data management challenge (54%), followed by using AI to classify and segment data (48%).
Komprise was founded to meet the arising challenges of unstructured data growth and deliver a powerful, flexible, no lock-in approach for enterprise IT teams to manage this data across silos. In the AI age, Komprise is further refining its Intelligent Data Management platform to help storage professionals prepare data for safe, accurate AI ingestion.
Komprise Architecture is built on the following principles:
1. Simple: Komprise is simple to deploy and operate. It requires no proprietary interfaces or complex infrastructure setup. Komprise was built such that it can be installed in minutes and Komprise manages all the components for customers.
2. Open: Komprise works using open standards such as NFS, SMB/CIFS and REST/S3 without the use of proprietary stub files or agents.
3. Vendor Agnostic: Komprise is built on open standards and works with any storage supporting those common standards. This means you can keep your preferred vendors and manage data seamlessly across multiple vendor storage devices and cloud storage services.
4. Analytics-Driven: Komprise uses the analytics from enterprise data usage and growth patterns to provide an ROI-driven approach to optimally manage data based on changing requirements and needs.
5. Transparent without Lock-in: Komprise moves data transparently which means it is fully accessible from the source as files, exactly as before, and the data is accessible as files or objects from the target.
6. Elastic Scaling: Komprise scales elastically on-demand. There are no central bottlenecks, databases or servers to limit scalability.
7. Data Management-as-a-Service: Komprise does not require dedicated hardware or upfront infrastructure investments. It runs as a hybrid cloud service or as a fully managed data management-as-a-service (DMaaS) in the cloud.
8. Non-Intrusive: Komprise analyzes and manages data in the background, with no impact to storage and network performance and is outside the hot data path.
9. Adaptive: Komprise throttles back as needed when your storage or network are in active use, so you never have to monitor or schedule when Komprise runs.
10. Efficient: No matter where your data is going, Komprise is faster than others. Migrate file and object data 27 times faster than generic tools like rsync for NFS workloads across heterogeneous clouds and storage and 25 times faster than generic tools like Robocoby for SMB workloads even over WAN. Komprise also delivers 100% faster data ingestion to AI compared with major copy and sync tools.
“Modern Data Storage Management Services (DSMS) solutions are foundational to business analytics and generative AI (GenAI) initiatives, helping enterprises unlock the full value of their data by making it more discoverable, contextualized and actionable.”–Gartner
Komprise Intelligent Data Management Under the Hood
Komprise Elastic Grid
Komprise handles any scale of data using an elastic scale-out architecture that has no central bottlenecks. Start with a Komprise Observer virtual machine and simply scale by adding more. Komprise automatically load balances and creates fault-tolerance across the elastic grid. There are no central databases or bottlenecks to limit scalability. Komprise scales to handle billions of files and tens of petabytes of data with a lightweight distributed architecture. There is no single point of failure. Komprise uses fault-tolerant architecture principles to create a resilient grid with Observer virtual instances that provide failover to one another in an active-active configuration without requiring any dedicated infrastructure.
Komprise Policy Engine
Komprise uses high-level policies that drive automated data management and data movement. Unlike rule-based architectures that require you to specify low-level rules for every condition and can create conflicts and unnecessary complexity, Komprise provides a declarative model. This allows you to specify high level policies such as when data is considered cold or how you want data replicated. Komprise does the rest. You can set the same policy across multi-vendor clouds and storage, making it easy to manage data at scale across an enterprise that has a heterogeneous storage unit.
Komprise Transparent Move Technology (TMT)
Komprise, with its patented Transparent Move Technology (TMT), moves data transparently using standard file system constructs. The solution avoids the use of static stubs and agents. It archives files such that the archived files continue to be accessed from their original location as files, while the data resides as objects in the cloud. Komprise provides this file-to-object translation without requiring rehydration, with the associated licensing and egress fees, back to the source. Files archived by Komprise are also accessible as native objects from the cloud without going through Komprise or the original file storage, so there is no lock-in. Finally, Komprise does not get in front of hot data access.
Deep Analytics
Komprise automatically creates a Global File Index or metadatabase by indexing metadata across all on-premises and cloud storage. This allows authorized users to search, tag and operate on unstructured data across the enterprise. This approach addresses mass data fragmentation by automatically creating one “logical silo” without restricting you to a single storage platform. IT teams gain deeper insights and greater control over data for multiple use cases.
Smart Data Workflows
Komprise Smart Data Workflows allow for custom workflows based on Deep Analytics queries, supporting new use cases for security, compliance, research, AI, cost savings and more. With Smart Data Workflows you can create custom queries across on-premises, edge and cloud storage silos to find the precise data you need, execute external functions on a subset of data and/or tag the data with additional metadata. Komprise Intelligent AI Ingest, included in Smart Data Workflows, leverages Komprise Deep Analytics to filter out duplicates and outdated data, include only data by authoritative sources, exclude sensitive data if desired and filter data before copying it to the storage bucket of choice.
Elastic Data Migration
Komprise eliminates the cost and complexity of unstructured data migrations with Komprise Elastic Data Migration, which analyzes and automatically parallelizes data movement at every level to maximize performance. Elastic Data Migration migrates up to 27 times faster than generic tools across hybrid cloud storage environments. You can then set up hundreds of migrations and run them faster at a fraction of the cost. Komprise ensures full file fidelity with checksums and integrity reporting per file.
Komprise is a storage-agnostic unstructured data management solution that prioritizes analytics and visibility, scalability and the ultimate flexibility in complex enterprise data environments. We call this the Komprise Data Experience (KDX). It means you can meet the needs of your various stakeholders with the best cost economics, the lowest risk, and the best pathway to leverage unstructured data for long-term value and AI initiatives.
Learn more about the Komprise Data Experience.
