With today’s distributed infrastructure and remote workforces, which are often spread out globally, it can be challenging to provide robust, high-performance, and secure data access. Hammerspace is working with enterprise, research, and government organizations around the world to help them to make data a globally accessible resource and look forward to sharing their stories and industry best practices with you here!
Hammerspace is excited to announce the launch of our podcast, Data Unchained. In the first podcast episode, I speak with Hammerspace Founder and CEO David Flynn, who discusses how many organizations are addressing the challenge of having multiple data centers, maybe more than one cloud region, and a workforce in many places. Flynn discusses how many organizations are addressing the challenge of having multiple data centers, maybe more than one cloud region, and a workforce in many places.
Connecting global users with their data and applications, on any existing data center infrastructure or public cloud service
“The cloud is a very important part of it (decentralized data) in that you have infrastructure resources that are themselves distributed,” said Flynn. “But the challenge is the data itself. It’s very easy to find server resources anywhere, but it’s difficult to have your data where you need to use it.”
When you have data stored in multiple locations, as well as applications and remote users needing to use that data, the cloud can make it easy to spin up infrastructure and a storage system anywhere in the world, Flynn noted. But it’s often hard to have your data there.
Having data in the cloud often means making copies of data and storing it closer to users. This causes a variety of issues, including the potential for outdated or out-of-sync data, additional costs for storing multiple copies of the same data, and hefty data egress fees. It also takes time and money to make copies and move data.
This is why Hammerspace has become so valuable in creating the decentralized cloud.
Why It Matters: The Need for Distributed, Decentralized Data
Data is having a massive transformative effect on nearly every business, with artificial intelligence and machine learning allowing better utilization of data. “I don’t think there’s an industry out there that isn’t affected by the opportunity for digital transformation to change the competitive dynamics,” Flynn said.
He sees the decentralization of data as similar to the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. For example, you don’t need a central trusted agent if you can build a decentralized trust. “As the world becomes smaller and smaller,” he said. “There’s a need for things to work in a distributed, decentralized fashion.”
Data needs to be connected, in sync, and high performance no matter who is using it or where it is stored.
The solution is to create a Global Data Environment that works across cloud infrastructure, data centers and the edge – essentially anywhere that data is created and connects it to the users and applications that need it. That’s what Hammerspace, does. Hammerspace delivers a way to connect users with their global applications and data, whether it resides in an existing data center, on-premises, or within AWS, Azure, or Google cloud services.
By freeing data from the underlying infrastructure, Hammerspace manages data using a global file system, which helps optimize costs and accelerates performance. Regardless of whether data is stored on-prem or in the cloud, you can centralize data without migration. Only the data you need is moved to enable local performance.
Listen to the full podcast episode with David Flynn – and subscribe to our podcast to receive updates with new episodes!
Learn More
Contact us to set up a meeting and learn more about Hammerspace’s software-defined data platform.