Komprise Architecture Overview
Data Management as a Service Designed for the Modern Scale of Data.
Distributed, Scale-out Architecture
Komprise is built on a distributed, scalable, fault-tolerant architecture of stateless Observers placed near the storage where they are most effective at analysis and mobilization. Komprise offers a centralized Global File Index and a centralized management console through which you can view and manage all of your data across your data silos. The platform is standards based (NFS, SMB, S3), there are no agents or stubs and it is never in the hot data path. Komprise is delivered as a cloud service. Easy to set up and easy to use.
✓ Standards based
✓ No agents, no stubs
✓ Transparent, not in hot data path
✓ Native access
✓ Scale-out
✓ Easy, cloud service
See Komprise Compatibility for a list of supported platforms.
One Data Management Platform, Many Use Cases
Distributed, Elastic Grid Services
The Komprise Intelligent Data Management Platform is powered by a scale-out, shared-nothing architecture. There is no central database. Komprise Observers run in a highly-available, scale-out grid. Additionally, the platform is standards based (NFS, SMB, S3). Komprise is delivered as a cloud service. Easy to set up. Easy to use.
Global File Index
Komprise continuously indexes all files in place, creating one global view across silos. It’s the data access benefits of a global namespace or global file system, without sitting in the hot data path. Komprise customers can easily search, tag, and create curated data sets. This is the basis of automated and intelligent unstructured data management and data mobility. Copy, move and operate on curated data sets through the policy-based automation engine. Find just what you need, enrich with tagging and deliver AI-ready data to your analytics pipelines and AI/ML engines. Execute functions and accelerate time-to-data value.
Transparent Move Technology™
Patented Transparent Move Technology (TMT) moves and manages data without being in the hot data path. This is a no-disruption experience as users and apps can still access data from the source. Users can also access data in its Native format— directly from the target. With Komprise TMT, organizations gain file and object duality.
Intelligent Data Management Chalk-Talk Videos
Take a deep dive to learn more: Check out our Storage Field Day 22 presentations.
Why Data Management Should
be an Independent Layer
A review of the unstructured data management challenges seen by Komprise, as well as recent momentum and customer stories.
Komprise Intelligent Data
Management Demonstration
An overview of Komprise, highlighting multisite controls, Deep Analytics Actions, and Transparent Move Technology™ (TMT).
Komprise Transparent Move
Technology™ Chalk Talk
An overview of how Komprise TMT transparently extends your NAS to any storage without disruption, while keeping native access.
Cloud Tiering Done Right
There’s a rush to the cloud for file and object data, but Smart Data Migrations and Tiering to the Cloud require a data-centric approach.
Smart Data Workflows Overview
An introduction to Smart Data Workflows, including a use case demonstration of this new functionality. Automate data discovery, deliver the right cloud native data.
Smart Data Workflows Chalk Talk
An overview of how Komprise delivers the right data to the right location and teams at the right time.
Dig Deeper
Does Komprise sit in front of the hot data path?
No. Many data management solutions sit in front of your primary storage and divert requests for the cold
data to another location. In general, these solutions promise some form of data virtualization or metadata offloading. But being in front of your network attached storage (NAS) impacts the performance of the hot data since it introduces a middleman. A “traffic cop” now directs data access, which is a tremendous risk for all your company’s data. A failure in this system creates an access nightmare. Just as if the traffic cop took a break, you’d have a major logjam—and when access to all of your data is lost, you’ll hear far worse than honking horns.
This approach also requires that scaling be based on hot rather than cold data access rates. Since hot data is 99.999% of your data access, this means that the “man-in-the-middle” device must be able to handle the massive hot data traffic requests. As this traffic increases with your data growth, the “man in the middle” must scale accordingly and still handle access spikes. If you don’t plan accordingly, you’ll decrease performance on your new flash storage. These types of solutions—and their issues—have been around for years losing customers due to high cost, decreased performance, and risk.
What are some benefits of direct data access?
The Komprise scale-out architecture works across storage systems using standard protocols—with no interference to hot data, metadata, or network paths. Access data with full fidelity from anywhere with no lock-in, keeping you in control of your data. Some of the benefits of direct data access include:
- Access data from any tier without going to the source
When you move your data with Komprise, it can be directly accessed from the target device using its native protocol. Let’s say you move data to the cloud using Komprise. You can access that data transparently from the source and directly from the target using standard S3/object cloud native tools. You can view and access that data as files by mounting the Komprise Cloud File System. This ensures your data doesn’t get locked into any one storage or backup solution—or to Komprise for that matter. - Access data in native format. At Komprise, we believe you should own your data and not be locked into a proprietary solution. When we archive or copy your data, we put it in a form that’s native to that storage system. This ensures that archived data is not locked away and can be continually used to extract value. You can use third-party applications, cloud native tools, or Komprise applications to extract that value— Komprise never locks you in. We preserve all the standard metadata and the extended metadata, such as tags with the data wherever it moves, so your files retain their full context and remain usable wherever they go.
- No rehydration necessary. Block-level tiering, used by many storage-based data management solutions, requires rehydrating archived data before it can be used, migrated, or backed up. This approach negates much of the benefit of data archiving in the first place. For instance, if you archive 75% of your data but must rehydrate it when backing up, you’ve saved nothing. Or, if you want to end-of-life your 1PB storage system from which you’ve archived 3PB of data over its lifetime, you’ll need to rehydrate all 3PB before you can migrate off that system. Komprise file-based tiering eliminates these rehydration issues.
Komprise move data transparently and without user or application disruption?
The patented Transparent Move Technology (TMT) moves data transparently using standard file system constructs. In order to provide a storage and cloud agnostic architecture, Komprise 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 actually resides as objects in the cloud. Komprise provides this file-to-object translation without requiring re-hydration 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.