SOLUTION BRIEF

Cohesity SmartFiles:
Unified File andObject Services for
the Hybrid Cloud
Key Benefits• Manage unstructured dataon-premises, at the edge, orin the cloud.

• Software defined flexibility.
• Simple, efficient, powerfuldata management andinsights.

• Massively scalable platform
for data consolidation.

• Lower TCO with data

consolidation and dramatic
data reduction up to 96x ormore.

• Multilayered cyber resiliency
and ransomware protection
to defend data andapplications.

• Comply with regulatory

mandates for data privacy
and retention.

Unstructured Data Growth ChallengesCorporate data is growing at a rate as high as 60% per year, most of which is unstructured in
the form of file shares, backups, archives, logs, media files, dev/test and analytics. As much as
90% of that data will be infrequently or never accessed. Traditional network attached storage(NAS) and object storage solutions were designed over a decade ago for traditional use cases,
and without serious architectural consideration for hybrid cloud IT environments. These file andobject silos create multiple challenges related to scalability, data management and security thatdrain precious staff resources, puts sensitive data a risk for exposure, and hinders the pace ofbusiness acceleration and innovation. Related costs also often destroy storage budgets. That’s
why we created Cohesity SmartFiles: to go beyond traditional file and object platforms and address
escalating and evolving data management pain with reliable and secure on-premises, hybrid, andmulticloud solutions.

What is Cohesity SmartFiles
Cohesity SmartFiles modernizes and simplifies data and application management by providing
a modern economical converged target for consolidating data silos and securely managing
unstructured content and application data. It is an enterprise-class, software-defined,
datacentric, multiprotocol file and object solution that transcends traditional offerings in termsof manageability, scale, cybersecurity, efficiency, and multi-tiered data management. Integrated
data services, Marketplace apps, and machine-learning assisted management uniquely provide
intelligence, enhanced threat mitigation, and ease-of-administration that separate SmartFilesfrom the rest. SmartFiles is based on the Cohesity Data Cloud platform, which provides a patented
distributed architecture for scale-out storage in a pay-as-you-grow model. To maximize availability,
Cohesity’s unique distributed file system provides resiliency and consistency while eliminating
disruptive upgrades.

““We provide the back end for leading companies all over the world, and as an example, justone of our customers has more than 2.5 billion files, so it was imperative to enable a scaleout, software-defined file and object solution across our environment.”
JOHN WHITE, chief innovation officer, ExpedientSOLUTION BRIEF | Cohesity SmartFiles

Why Is SmartFiles Smart?

rich APIs. Cold data on costly Tier 1 storage automatically moves

SmartFiles provides modern data management that uniquelyconsistent management. Manage across multiple clusters andcombines intelligent data management, hybrid cloud flexibility,
and active threat defense, along with multiple features andoptions to extract value from your data. Unlike traditional NAS andobject storage, the Cohesity Data Cloud platform with SmartFilesis data-centric, not storage or infrastructure centric. This means
there is no need to move data to apps and add-on data services as
we deliver them in the same platform. This removes the complexity
and cost of integrating multiple ecosystem apps to enable fileand object data management. Cohesity Marketplace apps andmachine-learning assisted management also provide intelligenceitself to a cost-optimized tier or the cloud. Utilize policies to ensure
locations from a single management pane. Cloud or on-premises.
Core or edge. Physical or virtual. Data movement is always easy andtransparent to applications. Cohesity SmartFiles alleviates the stressand complexity of traditional scale-out NAS.

Integrated AppsIntegrate an entire ecosystem on a single platform with apps fromthe Cohesity Marketplace. That means anti-virus protection, file audit,and content search all run on the Cohesity Data Cloud platform withand ease-of management.

no additional infrastructure required. Detect anomalous file accesses

The bottom line is that SmartFiles is smart based on its deployment

reasons. The SmartFiles solution eliminates the cost of infrastructure

flexibility, broad compatibility, stress-free management, integrated
security, visibility and control of unstructured data across the entire
geographic enterprise, and lower storage cost.

Freedom of Choice
Software-defined means customers have the freedom to choose themost appropriate hardware for any file or object workload. It’s thefreedom to match capacity, performance, and cost with workload
requirements. But this is not just about today, it’s about tomorrow.
SmartFiles future-proofs unstructured data workloads on theassurance that workloads are not bound to proprietary hardware—or even the data center. SmartFiles runs at the edge, in the datacenter, and in the cloud. Unified NFS and SMB protocols support file
management on-premises and the cloud. SmartFiles is also an easy
on-ramp to the cloud through its native S3 protocol.

Broad Compatibility

from file logs. Index and search content for compliance and security
for an application ecosystem while removing the management effort
required to manage ecosystem hardware.

Eliminate Security Risks
SmartFiles integrated cybersecurity makes security, including
ransomware protection, easy to deploy and manage. It’s a multilayered security approach to protect, detect, and recover your data:• Prevent – Immutable file system, software encryption, overthe wire encryption, multi-factor and quorum authentication,DataLock (WORM), and adherence to multiple compliancestandards.

• Detect – Detect infected files and prevent files from being

compromised. Observe user and behavior analytics for security
and compliance reasons.

• Recover – Rapidly clone your last good snapshot and connect
to it for instant access to data.

SmartFiles has you covered if you have a mixed OS environment or
hybrid cloud environment. File permissions across NFS and SMB
environments are mapped for transparent file access from either
protocol. Files and objects can be accessed simultaneously, and alldata is always available as S3. Hybrid environments are easier as
SmartFiles speaks the language of Windows/Linux/Unix and thecloud. Seamless data interoperability helps make complex hybrid
and multicloud environments easy.

Stress-Free Operation
It begins with an intuitive UI and “click-and-go” ease. It ends with a“Google-like” Enterprise SearchIt’s not just simple, it’s deep and data-centric. Get fast search
results across file metadata and file content as both are indexed.
Unlike traditional solutions, use results to drive data-drivenservices and make decisions on actual data contents, and notjust data about the data. Data is no longer dark. Rather, it’s arenewable resource you need for insights and smart operations.
Conduct a single simple search across the entire enterprise. Searchany data—anywhere. Across silos, VMs, backups, data centers,
remote sites, and multiple clouds.

bit more time to focus on strategic matters—or just extra time torelax. Machine-learning driven management acts as a hidden smart
assistant to remove complexity and save time. Data migrations
are easy using Cohesity’s backup solution—which removes thecomplexity of other migration tools. Automate operations throughLow storage cost
Being software-defined, SmartFiles customers have a variety ofhardware price points to choose from. SmartFiles provides asmuch as 96x data reduction or more through deduplication acrossdata center volumes, compression, and small file optimization.

SOLUTION BRIEF | Cohesity SmartFiles
Cost of ownership can be reduced by as much as 51% throughconsolidation of silos and moving data from Tier 1 storage to a
cost-optimized Cohesity tier. Let’s explore this technology.

• Data deduplication – Based on advanced sliding window

variable dedupe technology. This means that duplicate datathat has been slightly changed is still deduped—which isbeyond traditional dedupe capabilities.

• Compression – Zstandard compression algorithm for highcompression ratios.

• Small file optimization – Eliminated the small file amplification
penalty common to traditional NAS file systems. Small files
are stored efficiently and without the need for triple-mirroring
inefficiency. Put simply, 50TB of small files under SmartFilesconsumes about 50TB of capacity.

• Cross-volume dedupe – Unlike many traditional NAS

appliances, data is deduped across storage volumes andapplication silos across the data center. Duplicate data that
can’t be reduced by traditional silo-by-silo dedupe is eliminatedby the Cohesity SmartFiles.

• Data Insights – SmartFiles provides the built-in capability toscan third-party NAS solutions to analyze file access trends.
A policy can be created to transparently tier or migrate older
inactive data from third-party and generic NAS solutions,
including NetApp, Dell-EMC Isilon, and Pure Storage, toCohesity. Data can be seamlessly accessed on SmartFiles while
NAS storage costs are instantly and drastically reduced.

There are dozens of workloads and use cases in which SmartFiles provides benefit. Amongst these use cases are:ContentManagement• Secure file
repository• Scalable libraries• File and Object

Splunk Cold
Buckets• Cost-effective coldarchiving• on-premises, cloudor both

• Frozen data toCorporate Video• Corporate
communication• In-houseproductions• Education andtraining

cloudDigital Archives

Video Surveillance• Audio and video• Body and mobile• Digital documents
files• Active and passivearchives• Backup datasets• Security cameras
cams• Rapid retrievalBackup• Databases backup• Target for third
party backup
applications

from large
amounts of data

There are many industries that depend on Cohesity for file and object services. These industries include:

Financial Services• Images anddocuments• Call logs andcorrespondence

Law Firms• Documents andresearch• Collaboration• eDiscovery andlegal holdState, Local andEducation• Collaboration andresearch• Safety and security• Innovation andtechnology

Healthcare• PACS archives• VNA archives

Life Sciences andMedical Research• Genomic dataarchive• Security• Compliance

Manufacturingand Technology• Design files,images, documents• IOT data
• Security andcomplianceSOLUTION BRIEF | Cohesity SmartFiles

FeatureDescription

Data management platform

Single platform for data protection and security, files, objects, dev/test, analytics, andcloud integration.

API-first architecture design

Maximum flexibility and ease of automation. Cohesity integrates with leading thirdparty apps and solutions you already use. Easily integrate into your existing on-premenvironment and create bonds instead of divisions between operational teams.

NFS3, CIFS, SMB 2.x, SMB 3.0, S3, andOpenStack Swift APIs

Simultaneous multiprotocol access to the same data with unified permissions. Supports
NFS, SMB, and S3 APIs.

MMC integration

Snap-in for the Microsoft management console, which allows Cohesity file shares to be
managed by the MMC.

Fully distributed shared-nothing filesystemLimitless scalability, always-on availability, non-disruptive upgrades, pay-as you-growmodel.

Global deduplication and compression

Unparalleled storage efficiency with global deduplication, compression, and small filecapacity optimization across all cluster nodes to significantly reduce data center costand footprint.

Quality of service (QoS)

QoS policies are provided that optimize performance for different types of workloads.

Global indexing and search

File and object metadata is indexed upon ingest, enabling Google-like search across all
files in a cluster. Indexed search of file contents through Insight integrated Marketplaceapp. Search across geographic locations and clouds via Cohesity Helios UI.

Windows Active Directory and Kerberos
integration with role-based access control(RBAC)

Simplify user and group access to data utilizing credentials and permissions with
Windows AD and Kerberos mechanisms. Create and manage custom Cohesity cluster
administration roles for domain users and groups.

Multilayered authentication

Multi-factor authentication. Quorum authentication provides an extra layer ofprotection by requiring approval by a predefined group of administrators for all
sensitive and privileged operations.

Encryption and key management

Support for data-at-rest as well as data-in-flight encryption using the industry standard
256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. The platform is also FIPS
140-1 and 140-2 compliant. Use the built-in key management system, or a third-partysolution.

Write Once Read Many (WORM)
immutability

Enables long-term retention of data that has compliance controls mandating a policythat objects cannot be modified during the lock time.

Compliance certifications

SEC, FINRA, Common Criteria, PCI-DSS

Quotas

Easily establish user and file system quotas with audit logs.

Public cloud integration

Native integration with all leading public clouds including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google
Cloud Platform, and any S3 compatible clouds, as well as AWS GovCloud and Microsoft
Azure GovCloud

Cloud use case flexibility (CloudArchive,CloudTier, CloudReplicate)Archive into leading public cloud services for long-term retention. Utilize cloud tiering
for transparent capacity expansion into the cloud. Replicate into the cloud for disasterrecovery and dev/test.

Strict consistency

Guaranteed consistent data regardless of scale.

SOLUTION BRIEF | Cohesity SmartFiles

FeatureDescription

Policy-based backup protection

Integrated data protection software and SnapTree technology is available to allow
simplified data protection of files and objects with fully-hydrated snapshots.

Replication for disaster recovery

Built-in, granular, and secure replication services for geo redundancy.

Learn more at Cohesity.com/products/smartfiles© 2023 Cohesity, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cohesity, the Cohesity logo, SnapTree, SpanFS, DataPlatform, DataProtect, Helios, the Helios logo, DataGovern, SiteContinuity, and other Cohesity marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cohesity, Inc. inthe US and/or internationally. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. This material (a) is intended to provide you information about Cohesityand our business and products; (b) was believed to be true and accurate at the time it was written, but is subject to change without notice; and (c) is provided on an “AS IS” basis. Cohesity disclaims all express or implied
conditions, representations, warranties of any kind.

Cohesity.com | 1-855-926-4374 | 300 Park Ave., Suite 1700, San Jose, CA 95110

3000037-008-EN 11-2023