Cohesity has upgraded its Cohesity DataPlatform to integrate and run needed applications such as antivirus and auditing services right inside the storage platform rather than requiring a separate hardware infrastructure. The new capabilities work with applications found in the Cohesity Marketplace, making it easier for users to find and run the applications they need for their businesses.

In addition, Cohesity also has added new capabilities that allow users to move data from almost any tier-one storage platform to cheaper tier-two storage without applications even knowing the data have been moved.

The new Cohesity SmartFiles features, which are available immediately to users, are part of a myriad of additions and performance improvements made to the Cohesity DataPlatform, the company said.

By allowing customers to run their needed applications on the Cohesity storage platform itself, they can simplify their infrastructure, save money that would have been spent on additional infrastructure and reduce their management costs, Andre Franklin, product marketing director for Cohesity, told Channel Futures.

Cohesity’s Andre Franklin

“We’ve added full support for file specific apps that are in the Cohesity Marketplace,” he said. “In a normal file environment, you need to protect it with antivirus, you want to have something in there to audit for bad application behavior, and more.”

On other storage systems, those kinds of needed applications typically run on an external infrastructure, requiring a separate server or other hardware, and not on the storage system itself, said Franklin.

“This now supports running things like antivirus, content search and file auditing applications on the storage infrastructure. That makes it easier for customers,” to run it all together, he said.

The new SmartFiles features are now integrated into Cohesity DataPlatform. Also included are multiple layers of security, including software encryption, anomalous file access detection, search for sensitive data, multi-factor authentication, immutable file system and federal data compliance requirements.

The new capabilities for heterogeneous multitier data management mean that customers can now integrate other tier one NAS products with their Cohesity infrastructure and then move old and inactive data to a less expensive Cohesity storage tier instead of keeping it on tier one systems, said Franklin.

Using Cohesity SmartFiles, customers can search any data across silos, virtual machines, backups, data centers, remote sites and multiple clouds to find what they need wherever it is stored, he said.

“For our partners, it gives them more options to serve their customers,” he said. “If their customers are already using DataPlatform for backup, for example, these customers can now leverage SmartFiles for NAS. Also, if there is a customer that is looking for an innovative modern way to leverage NAS, this could help potentially bring in new business.”

With Cohesity SmartFiles, channel partners can offer their customers significantly more capabilities compared to traditional NAS, he explained. “It is a modern, differentiated solution that solves multiple use cases for the enterprise with a keen focus on file and object services, data protection, backup, disaster recovery and cloud integration.”

David Able, president and chief operating officer of Edge Solutions, an integration VAR in Alpharetta, Georgia, said the new SmartFiles features in Cohesity DataPlatform will be useful for …

… his customers because the included dynamic search and automated migration of old files directly impacts ROI for users.

“With those features, it makes the platform viable for our customers,” he said.

Edge Solutions’ David Able

“The secondary storage market has traditional players,” said Able. “There are some software-only players that have some powerful answers but no one product that contains the complete platform like Cohesity.”

Christophe Bertrand, a storage analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, said the new SmartFiles tools will help mitigate or eliminate the data silos that exist in many organizations today.

“This silo or fragmentation situation leads to many operational inefficiencies, risk exposures and the inability to holistically leverage the data for other purposes,” he said. “Some of the issues customers have to handle include compliance, which is getting worse with new rules like GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act, as well as a lack of search capabilities, difficulty in leveraging hybrid infrastructures and cloud.”

The new capabilities offered by SmartFiles should help channel partners drive new business, said Bertrand.

“It’s a good opportunity for them to come in with an infrastructure modernization offering that in turn lowers operational costs and increases operational resilience. The bigger prize will be for partners to support end-users in their data re-use initiatives and how to get there. This platform can help them build data intelligence services.”

451 Research’s Steven Hill

Steven Hill, a storage analyst with 451 Research, said the SmartFiles features will help customers as they work to get their growing stores of unstructured data in check.

“Traditional file system-based storage isn’t particularly well suited for automating the ongoing identification, management and governance of unstructured data, so technologies like Cohesity’s SmartFiles are evolving to bridge the gap between the limited capabilities of the file systems that most legacy applications require, and the greater flexibility and efficiency offered by metadata-rich object storage,” he said.

“While hardware performance remains a key focus of the primary storage market, the new secondary storage market provides a number of evolving new options for data protection, disaster recovery, business continuity and other new, mission-critical concerns,” said Hill. “Customers will need to develop a better understanding of the data they choose to keep in order to contain storage costs, optimize ongoing business value and protect that information against intrusion, ransomware and privacy-based liabilities.”