Tarmin Ranked Contender in the Object Storage Space

The new IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Object-Based Storage 2013 vendor assessment and market analysis has been released and IDC has ranked Tarmin as a ’contender’, with the acknowledgement that “with its strong roadmap, Tarmin will easily make it to ‘major players’ category as it starts realizing the fruits of executing on its strategy”. IDC’s recognition of our prowess in the object market is, of course, appreciated, but Tarmin isn’t an object storage player… Tarmin is the pioneer of Data Defined Storage.

Apples and Oranges

For Tarmin to be ranked amongst object storage vendors is like Mercedes being ranked amongst engine manufacturers. Yes, Mercedes happens to manufacture very high quality engines as an integral component in their product, but the true value add of the Mercedes experience comes from the entire automobile, not just the engine. In the same way, Tarmin does deliver high performance, random access, media independent object storage as an underlying technology, but it is only when looked at as a complete solution that meets the vision of Data Defined Storage that the full value is realized.

Tarmin isn’t an Object Storage Player

In the past, the main focus of data storage was merely having somewhere to put all of the data. Therefore, deploying Object Storage was a sufficient method in fulfilling this requirement. Recently, with the rise of unstructured data growth, these technologies are no longer suitable. The unprecedented growth of computer generated information has strained the capabilities and eliminated many of the advantages of using Object Storage.

Tarmin is a Data Defined Storage Provider

As a result of these inadequacies, a new market category has emerged, one that is tightly aligned with modern data challenges and goes beyond Object Storage; Data Defined Storage. Data Defined Storage eliminates performance bottlenecks and resilience issues caused by Object Storage vendors who often rely on 3rd party file gateways, access control schema and proprietary APIs for integration to appease the influx of data.

A Data Centric Approach

Using a highly data centric approach, the Data Defined Storage infrastructure is comprised of an abstraction layer whereby data is no longer accessed or identified by the storage device upon which it currently resides. Unlike Object Storage technologies that are generally bound to a single performing disk (near line), this approach provides organizations the freedom to choose the fastest enterprise disk arrays, cloud storage targets or tape targets that they wish.

Single, Unified View of Organizational Data

Designed with distributed access in mind, Data Defined Storage delivers transparency across all data repositories uniting the application, information and storage tiers into a single management architecture. The same functionality delivered by Object Storage technology would consist of a single access point and require a 3rd party provider. Additionally, Object Storage treats data uniformly whereas Data Defined Storage embeds intelligence within the infrastructure using not just file metadata, but also full content metadata and arbitrary metadata tags for enhanced search and data analytics, maximizing the value gained from the organizations data and providing a significant competitive advantage.

Volume to Value

Although the concept of Object Storage is well established, the capabilities are outdated. By introducing 3rd party providers, the Object Storage market is failing to address the big picture challenges as a whole and instead are complicating matters by throwing more applications together to fill the performance gaps in an attempt to stay relevant. Data Defined Storage is a complete solution out of the box, and Tarmin GridBank is just that, an all-encompassing platform that modernizes the way organizations view their data, and turning it from high volume to high value.

Business Benefits

Tarmin GridBank provides significant benefits, including automated archiving and migration policies, consolidating distributed repositories of unstructured data, enhanced end-user data management capabilities, improved performance across the grid. This Data Defined Storage solution establishes a solid foundation for organizations in managing their large volumes of data today, and in the future without any Object Storage conundrums.

IDC’s 2014 MarketScape

Tarmin is a leading pioneer in the Data Defined Storage market. As such, though recognition from IDC for Object Storage is appreciated, it really misses the point of the Tarmin vision. We are forging new ground in an innovative new market category, bringing new technologies and solutions to bear on the intensifying problem of unstructured data growth. Until IDC recognizes that the only way to categorize Tarmin amongst its peers is in the Data Defined Storage market, their analyses will continue to fall flat. Bring on the 2014 IDC Data Defined Storage MarketScape!