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DataCore Swarm

Software-Defined Object Storage Solution for Core, Edge, and Hybrid Cloud Environments

Ensure rapidly scaling datasets are continuously protected and instantly accessible while eliminating tedious storage management, reducing TCO, and enabling distributed workloads.

Dc Swarm Image

Are you struggling with protecting and providing access to rapidly scaling data sets or enabling distributed content-based use cases? Using tape is cost-effective but data is not instantly accessible; and tape is difficult to manage. The public cloud often presents the challenge of compounding, unpredictable recurring costs, and the inability to meet local performance and privacy requirements.

DataCore Swarm provides an on-premises object storage solution that radically simplifies the ability to manage, store, and protect data while allowing S3/HTTP access to any application, device, or end-user. Swarm transforms your data archive into a flexible and immediately accessible content library that enables remote workflows, on-demand access, and massive storage scalability.

  • Provides a scalable platform that can continually evolve by pooling any mix of x86 servers, HDDs and SSDs with 95% data storage capacity
  • Automates storage and infrastructure management so a single system/IT administrator can manage dozens to hundreds of PBs
  • Includes a web-based UI and API simplifying the management of hundreds of nodes, billions of files, thousands of tenants, and PBs of data
  • A scale-out parallel architecture enables all nodes to perform all functions resulting in the ability to scale performance linearly

Use Cases

Here are some popular use cases of Swarm catering to different industry requirements. There are numerous other applications of Swarm in organizations and service provider environments.

Active Archive

Offloads data from primary NAS storage

Immutable Storage for Backups

Defends against data loss and threat vectors

Nearline Archive

Supports digital media workflows both in-facility and on-set (edge)

Origin Storage

For OTT/VOD services and content delivery

Medical Imaging Archive

Stores medical images, PACS, and VNA for healthcare sectors

Archive for Digital Asset Management

Protects assets, enabling low-latency access

Data Lake Storage

Handles massive workloads in research, big data, IoT, and AI/ML

Multi-tenant Storage

Facilitates various cloud service offerings (e.g., StaaS)

Long-term Data Preservation

Future-proofs content protection – no forklift upgrades

Alternative to Public Cloud and LTO Tape

Best-suited for online, on-premises data storage

We chose Swarm because it was the most flexible platform for us and had good per-terabyte licensing. We started with 100 TBs and now have over 1.25 PBs across 200 nodes from different hardware vendors. Swarm is a key component to deliver that high-end quality service that NEP has always aimed for.

Gerbrand de Ridder, Head of R&D and Lead System Architect NEP The Netherlands

We could just plug a new node in and it would boot itself up automatically. There was no prep work. We had no OS installs. We could migrate disk groups between nodes and Swarm would decide if the disk was part of the node or not and move it around to the correct node.

Lakshmi Venkataswamy, CTO and Cofounder iQ Media

Scalability is one of the slickest things about Swarm, one sweet thing they did with the platform is, when you drop a new node in, it builds itself from the ground up. The new node announces itself to the main controller. If you want to add a 72 terabyte or petabyte node you just drop it in.

John Gillam, CTO for Cloud Services British Telecommunications (BT)
Energy Savings Calculator
Find out how much energy and money you can save* when using DataCore Swarm’s adaptive power conservation technology, Darkive™, that spins down disks in your storage cluster when there are periods of inactivity/idle time.
Total number servers in your storage cluster
Use the slider to set the number of servers
Swarm Logo
25
Power savings over 5 years
14 MWh/year
Cost savings over 5 years
$5,065

*Energy and cost savings are estimates only; not a guarantee. Actuals may vary.

Want to learn more about Swarm and its Darkive functionality?

Read More About Darkive

Features

  • Unified web console for admins and end-users to track performance trends and mange/monitor content usage quotas
  • Simplify capacity addition and hardware refresh with self-managing and self-healing architecture
  • Stream content directly from the storage layer to internal employees or external subscribers
  • Optimize data protection for performance or capacity through lifecycle policies
  • Quickly search for data, customize metadata, and access files across a single namespace through S3 and HTTP(S)
  • Easily manage thousands of tenants and billions of files across multiple sites and unlike devices
  • Back up cold data from Swarm to Wasabi, S3 Glacier and object-based cloud and tape storage solutions
  • Secure data through encryption, access controls, and integrity verification

image of object storage solution’s unified web console

Manage storage, tenants, and data from any HTML5-enabled browser

image of streaming content directly from storage layer

Securely share and stream content directly from Swarm object storage

The figure below highlights the various data and infrastructure management capabilities of DataCore Swarm including key data services, access methods and supported protocols. Explore features in detail.

Consumers

  • End-Users
  • Application & Web Services
  • Devices

Access Methods

  • S3
  • HTTP(S)

Operation & Insights

Command & Control

Any Mix Of X86 Servers

  • HDD
  • SSD

Simplify and Streamline Data Management at the Edge

Single Node Swarm: Purpose-built for Small IT Environments

Benefits of Swarm Object Storage

Rapid Recovery

25X less down-time than traditional RAID storage

Superior Optimization

95% storage utilization for media and content

Performance Ready

5X faster throughput for S3 read and write operations

Simplified Content Management

Swarm Benefits Content Management
  • Intuitive data classification, indexing, and dynamic search
  • Policy-based replication for synchronous, asynchronous and stretch cluster uses
  • Custom metadata for ad hoc search & query
  • Share or stream files directly from the archive

Bulletproof Data Security

Swarm Benefits Security
  • Supports data encryption in transit and at rest
  • Assure data immutability with Legal Hold, WORM integration, and S3 object locking
  • Establish content integrity using Integrity Seals
  • Track storage access and activity with audit trails

Multi-Tenant Administration

Swarm Benefits Multi Tenet
  • Manage tenants, buckets, domains, and quotas
  • Integrate with existing identity management systems such as LDAP, AD, ApacheDS, Linux PAM, token-based S3 and SSO/SAML 2.0 platforms
  • Create detailed billing and accounting reports by domain based on bandwidth usage, access audits, etc.

Business Continuity and DR

Swarm Benefits Business Continuity
  • Maintain an always available active archive to retrieve data on-demand
  • Increase data durability through erasure coding and replication at the cluster- or object-level
  • Automatic failover and recovery
  • Automated backup to Wasabi or Amazon Glacier for DR

Hassle-free Storage Scalability

Swarm Benefits Scalability
  • Start with just one server and easily add capacity and performance as required
  • Expand to exabyte level storage with web-scale search and data access
  • Add disks and server hardware of your choice to the Swarm cluster
  • Extensible architecture supports Amazon S3 API and other third-party APIs

Cost Savings and Lower TCO

Swarm Benefits Cost Savings
  • High automation optimizes the utilization of resources, administrative time and budget
  • No downtime hardware upgrades enable ability to continuously evolve underlying hardware
  • Industry-leading 95% capacity for your data
  • Energy savings through adaptive power conservation for disks

Object Storage Performance Benchmark: A Real-World Swarm Use Case with STFC

DOWNLOAD WHITE PAPER

Flexible Deployment

Swarm runs on any standard x86 hardware and is highly available by design. Swarm software boots from RAM and utilizes only 5% of hard drive capacity for system data resulting in an industry-leading 95% capacity availability for your content. Scale up with disks and scale out with more nodes within a Swarm cluster, or even expand with more Swarm clusters as needed. With flexible deployment, you can add tenants and sites at any time. Swarm supports hot plug drives, adding/ retiring disks/nodes and rolling upgrades of the full software stack—all with no service downtime.

Swarm Deployment Options Bare Metal Deployment

Bare Metal Deployment

Boot from bare metal on any x86 server using any mix of HDDs and SSDs.

Swarm Deployment Options Virtual Machine Deployment

Virtual Machine Deployment

Deploy Swarm on virtual machines (VMs) powered by VMware ESXi.

Swarm Deployment Options Containerized Deployment

Containerized Deployment

Single-server installation with all Swarm services containerized and running on Kubernetes K3s.

Packaged Hardware Appliances are also available from our partners. Contact DataCore for more information

Use DataCore FileFly to Easily Offload Files from SMB Shares on NAS Devices and Windows Filers to Swarm

Licensing

Simple, transparent, and flexible licensing based on useable storage capacity in TB or PB across all of your Swarm instances.

Swarm object storage solution is typically used as an active archive, backup target, cloud storage, and content analytics and delivery platform. Licensing is the same regardless of what type of data is stored and managed and what use case Swarm is used for. Every Swarm term license includes Premier Support (24×7) and free product updates.

  • Cost-effective term licensing (annual and multi-year licenses are available)
  • Scale capacity as needed
  • Price per TB goes down as consumption grows
  • Volume discounts on total capacity in use apply
  • Governmental and educational organizations are eligible for additional discounts

Get Started with Swarm, Software-Defined Object Storage