Unstructured Data Management with Talon FAST and NetApp ONTAP
Overview
With an ever-increasing need for data consolidation, you have to ensure everyone is working from the same gold file system. We recommend a solution using technology from two of our vendor partners NetApp and Talon.
Using Talon FAST™ with NetApp ONTAP™ makes sense for so many reasons:
- Everyone is working from the same global file system.
- File locking is the key to Talon FAST™ to ensure there is ONLY one live version of critical files
- Centralised data means no more branch file server backups.
- Branches with low throughput/high latency links get data access just like being in the same location as the data.
- With NetApp’s ONTAP™, built in efficiencies result using deduplication, compression and compaction, along with tiering of cold blocks from ONTAP to Object Storage and replication of data to a secondary site all straight out of the box.
- Using NetApp ONTAP™ snapshots for instant recovery of files. Keeping hourly, daily and weekly snapshots for user recovery, keeping weekly’s for over a year and archiving monthly or yearly to Object Storage for long term retention
So how do we do this?
In diagram below, NetApp ONTAP™ can be running in either a public or local cloud, or even running on your infrastructure as SDS in VMware, KVM or Hyper-V. Any way you choose, you will get all of the smart features of ONTAP.
Then, using either a VM or physical server, install Talon FAST™ core software. The Talon FAST™ core server communicates with the CIFS Storage Virtual Machine (SVM) on the NetApp ONTAP™ instance through Microsoft DFS.
Talon FAST™ is then installed on physical or virtual servers at remote locations allowing user files to be cached locally, while still being locked globally to other users. The cache size in remote sites is up to you. Just make the D: drive as big as you need it.
What can you expect?
With the system Citrus Consulting are working on now with customers, live data testing has shown the products do exactly what they say. The systems are using NetApp ONTAP Cloud version 9.3 with Standard disks, not SSD.
Using NetApp’s built-in tools, there is a reduction of 30% for actual space requirement.
Overview of Results
Using Talon FASTTM to cache data from the NetApp ONTAP™ Cloud source, showed an impressive 24x improvement on opening of large files, 12x for medium files and 5 times for small files.
Saving the same file set shows a 16x improvement for large files, 9x for medium files and 7x for small files.
About Netapp, Talon Storage and Citrus Consulting
Citrus Consulting was founded in 2015, to work with companies ensure their data is in the right place at the right time. With this in mind, Citrus chose to work with NetApp and Talon Storage, who combined, work together to integrate your resources, while supporting your existing on-premise, hybrid cloud, or full cloud data centre.
NetApp has been around for over 25 years and ONTAP is the world’s number one storage operating system. Now with the ability to extract the OS from the hardware and use all the same functions in your hypervisor and hyper-scaler.
Talon Storage Talon FAST™ gives you the ability to centralise all file level data across your enterprise, consolidate the storage and server infrastructure from branch offices while maintaining optimal performance, and only manage it at one location using your existing on-premise, hybrid-cloud, or full cloud data centre.