Storage startup 22dot6 launched today and introduced an advanced enterprise storage architecture design for the commercial market - the industry's first software-defined TASS (Transcendent Abstracted Storage System) architecture.

An evolutionary next step beyond storage virtualization and hardware abstraction, TASS enables enterprises to access, move, manage, and protect all data assets transparently, utilizing any available storage resource, regardless of the hardware manufacture, physical, virtual or cloud location, protocol, or platform. TASS unifies physical, virtual, on-premise, and cloud storage resources locally and globally, integrating users, applications and data services.

In a TASS architecture, NAS, object and cloud systems are unified eliminating the isolated islands and segregated silos of all traditional platforms, transcending past, present and future technologies while presenting the look, feel and simplicity of a single storage system. The 22dot6 TASS solution enables users to manage totally disparate resources, regardless of location, as effectively as cloud storage.

22dot6's first product, its software Valence, creates a unified abstractive layer to transcend the limitations of conventional infrastructures, allow scale up/out, and provide the bridge between virtualization, hardware abstraction, data services and storage accessibility. With Valence, administrators can manage billions of files and exabytes of data within a true scale up / scale out architecture supporting a general compute HPC cluster of up to 60 data transport / access nodes per physical or virtual location and delivering data accessibility of 600-1200 GB per second within a single global namespace. Valence software offers all expected enterprise-level features plus many industry-exclusive capabilities, including:

Ease of integration, migration, assimilation, transition Move data from ground to cloud, cloud to cloud, cloud to ground with live, objective-based, infinite intelligent autonomic tiering. Integrate new and old or decommission legacy systems with live transparent data mobility. Valence supports off-line data management for archives like Amazon Glacier/tape providing location/device aware file level security implementing GDPR regulatory, and extended compliance capabilities.

High availability

Valence inherently provides simultaneous file availability in a one-to-many node active/active configuration, guaranteeing 100% utilization of any available storage resource. All users can see and access all files in real time through all data transport nodes and every assigned network port simultaneously, regardless of location or resource.  Valence eliminates hot-spots and the impact of hardware failures with machine learning, AI-based predictive analysis that manages data placement to meet performance and availability objectives.

High performance

As a modern scale-out/scale-up storage platform, TASS isolates and separates metadata management, data analytics/profiling and data services from the processes of providing IOPS and managing throughput. Valence assigns these inherently different tasks to dedicated CPUs and RAM, including SAS and PCIe board-level resources. Valence monitors all performance conditions in real time with predictive analysis and reporting to guarantee all user defined objectives - including read/write bandwidth, IOPS, and latency are maintained.

Data protection

Unlike most storage systems today that provide data services at a device or volume level Valence provides the ability to configure all data protection services at an application, user and sub-file level. Integrated data cost analysis assigns the correct level of protection based on user definable metrics.  Valence replaces file restore with immediate reacquisition and bypasses recovery through prevention. Utilizing undelete, fallback and master-copy direct access if a storage resource becomes unavailable, a file becomes corrupted, deleted or moved, Valence's "Next In Line" file, device and location transcendent accessibility seamlessly connects the user or application to the next logical copy of the file regardless of location.

Active/Active Multi-Site

A TASS architecture fundamentally transcends the concepts of a hot and cold site or resource.  All sites can be considered as active site, sharing data in real time to any other site, and all sites can act as a primary site depending on the objective. Rather than disaster recovery or replication processes that use a hot/cold site model, Valence incorporates a "Master File" model with global file awareness to provide both transparent disaster prevention and multi-site, active file accessibility.

Metadata management, with integrated data and system profiling Valence incorporates global indexing, search and analysis tools, providing administrators native capabilities to visualize, analyze and profile files, users, activities, performance and availability, based on virtually any query regardless of where the data resides. Metadata-level management enables tagging, classification, and triggers policies based on any file, application, user or system associated attribute.

Custom-defined objectives, management, and reporting What, when, where and why. Objectives can be set for cost optimization, performance, resiliency, availability, device and/or location including scheduled permission defined accessibility, while Valence monitors and reports on virtually any aspect of the system.

Total multiprotocol support

Built to transcend the boundaries of NAS, object, cloud, S3, SMB, NFS, software defined, physical, virtual and hybrid environments leveraging existing multi-manufacture components and off-the-shelf, commodity-based hardware.

Multi-tenant ready

Manage thousands of independent customers or internal departments isolated from each other through a unified, multi-location management console.

"Once every decade or so, breakthroughs in computing trigger an innovative leap in the way we manage, store, protect and access our data. A software defined T.A.S.S. architecture is not theoretical and represents that type of leap. Valence transcends the boundaries of your isolated islands and segregated silos of traditional storage models and gives us the ability to place and access files anywhere, anytime on anything," said 22dot6 founder and CEO Diamond Lauffin.