SOLUTION BRIEF

Cohesity SmartFiles:
Beyond Scale-Out NAS
Key Benefits

Unstructured Data Growth Challenges
According to Gartner, data will grow by 800% over the next five years, of which 80% will be• Freedom of choice• Broad compatibility• Stress-free operation• Eliminate security risks• Lower storage cost
• “Google-like” search

unstructured in the form of file shares, backups, archives, logs, media files, dev/test and analytics.
Traditional network attached storage (NAS) was designed over a decade ago for traditional use
cases, and without serious architectural consideration for cloud and hybrid IT environments. The
reality today is that there are multiple data silos resulting in mass data fragmentation across thedata center and cloud.
Challenges are not limited to the cost and management of multiple silos, or delivering hybrid cloud
seamlessly. Storage costs often destroy storage budgets. Addressing compliance, regulatory, andgovernance requirements adds to complexity and cost. That’s why we created Cohesity SmartFiles:
to go beyond traditional file and object platforms and address real data management pain with real
on-premises, hybrid, and multicloud solutions.

What is Cohesity SmartFiles
Cohesity SmartFiles is the industry’s first software-defined, data-centric, multiprotocol file andobject solution for the enterprise. SmartFiles is part of the Cohesity Helios data platform and goesbeyond traditional scale-out NAS in terms of manageability, scale, storage efficiency, integratedapplications, cybersecurity, and multi-tiered data management.

Why Is SmartFiles Smart?
Unlike traditional NAS, the Cohesity Helios data platform with SmartFiles is data-centric, notstorage or infrastructure centric. This means there is no need to move data to apps as apps
and data are integrated in the same platform. This removes the complexity and cost of running
file ecosystem apps for file environments. Cohesity Marketplace apps and machine-learningassisted management provide intelligence and ease-of management that separates SmartFilesfrom traditional scale-out NAS appliances. It’s smart and with virtually effortless management,
regardless of scale.

““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: Beyond Scale-Out NAS

SmartFiles uniquely provides freedom of choice, broad
compatibility, stress-free management, integrated security, searchof 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 workload. It’s the freedom tomatch 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 the assurance thatworkloads are not bound to proprietary hardware—or even thedata center. SmartFiles runs in the cloud with all the functionality
available on-premises. And it’s an easy on-ramp to the cloud
through its native S3 protocol—along with unified NFS and SMB

search contents inside of files for compliance and security reasons.
The SmartFiles solution eliminates the cost of infrastructure for aNAS ecosystem while removing the management effort required tomanage NAS ecosystem hardware.

Eliminate Security Risks
Cybersecurity is not an option for unsecured data. It’s not a want—it’s a need. SmartFiles integrated cybersecurity makes security easy
to deploy and manage. It’s a multi-layered security approach toprevent, detect, and analyze threats:• Prevent – Immutable file system, software encryption, over thewire encryption, multi-factor authentication, DataLock (WORM),
and adherence to FIPS 140-1 and 140-2 standards.

protocols for on-premises and the cloud.

• Detect – Anti-virus: Detect infected files and prevent files fromBroad Compatibility• Analyze – Observe user and behavior analytics for security andSmartFiles has you covered if you have a mixed OS environment orhybrid 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
environments easy.

Stress-Free Operation
It begins with an intuitive UI and “click-and-go” ease. It ends with a
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 throughrich APIs. Cold data on costly Tier 1 storage automatically moves
itself to a cost-optimized tier or the cloud. Utilize policies to ensure
consistent management. Manage across multiple clusters andlocations 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 Apps
Integrate an entire NAS ecosystem on a single platform. That means
anti-virus protection, file audit, and content search all run on theCohesity Helios data platform with no additional infrastructure
required. Detect anomalous file accesses from file logs. Index andbeing compromised

compliance reasons

For added protection of sensitive SmartFiles data, Cohesity
DataGovern delivers AI-powered governance and threat detection.
It is an element of Cohesity’s threat defense architecture delivered
as SaaS to help you accurately discover sensitive data across all
your multi-cloud and on-premises applications, maintain strict
compliance, and respond and recover quickly from ransomware andother cyber threats.

“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 NAS, use results to drive data-driven services andmake decisions on actual data contents, and not just data about
the data. Data is no longer dark. Rather, it’s an asset you need forsmart operations. Conduct a single simple search across the entire
enterprise. Search any data—anywhere. Across silos, VMs, backups,
data centers, remote sites, and multiple clouds.

Low storage cost
Being software-defined, SmartFiles customers have a varietyof hardware price points to choose from. SmartFiles reduces
hardware storage requirements through data deduplication,
compression, small file optimization, and dedupe across data
center volumes. Storage costs can be reduced even further throughtiering from Tier 1 storage to a cost-optimized Cohesity tier. Let’sexplore 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.

SOLUTION BRIEF | Cohesity SmartFiles: Beyond Scale-Out NAS• Compression – Zstandard compression algorithm for highcompression ratios.

• 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.

• 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.

SmartFiles supports the migration of older inactive data from
Netapp, Dell/EMC Isilon, or Pure Storage transparently andseamlessly to Cohesity or to a cloud tier. Apps won’t know thedifference and 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:Content Management

Splunk Cold Buckets

Corporate VideoDigital Archives• Scalable libraries• Files and objects• on-premises, cloud or• In-house productions• Education and training• Audio and video files• Active archives• Passive archives• Document
management• Cost-effective coldarchivingboth• Frozen data to cloud• Corporatecommunication• Digital documents

Video Surveillance• Security cameras• Body and mobile cams
• Rapid retrieval fromlarge amounts of data

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

Financial Services

Law Firms• Images and documents • Documents andresearch• Call logs andcorrespondence• Collaboration• eDiscovery and legal
holdState, Local andEducation• Collaboration andresearch

Healthcare• PACS archives• VNA archives• Safety and security• Innovation andLife Sciences andMedical Research• Next generation
sequencing• Genomics analysis

technology

FeatureDescription

NFSv3, 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 API

Strict consistency

Guaranteed consistent data regardless of scale

SnapTree® snapshots and clones

Limitless and fully-hydrated snapshots for granular Cohesity Views (file systems) as wellas writable snapshot clones that provide instant creation, testing, and development ofView-based data sets

Fully distributed shared-nothing filesystem

Limitless scalability, always-on availability, non-disruptive upgrades, pay-as you-grow
model

SOLUTION BRIEF | Cohesity SmartFiles: Beyond Scale-Out NAS

FeatureDescription

API-first design

Architecture built with an API-first design for maximum flexibility and ease ofautomation

Data management platform

Single platform for data protection, files, objects, dev/test, analytics, and cloud
integration

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

Erasure coding and replication factor

Data is protected against any individual node failure with erasure coding or replication
across nodes

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 app. Searchacross geographic locations and clouds through Cohesity Helios.

Windows Active Directory and Kerberos
Integration with Role-Based Access Control(RBAC)

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

MMC Integration

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

Quotas

Easily establish user and file system quotas with audit logs

Policy-based backup protection

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

Quality of service (QoS)

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

Encryption

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.

Write Once Read Many (WORM)

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

Replication for disaster recovery

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

Cloud integration (CloudArchive, CloudTier,CloudReplicate)Archive into public cloud services for long-term retention. Utilize cloud tiering fortransparent capacity expansion into the cloud. Replicate into the cloud for disasterrecovery and dev/test. Also, SmartFiles runs in the cloud of major cloud service
providers with all of the functionality of on-premises deployments.

Integrated Apps

Support for Cohesity and third-party developed applications from the Cohesity
Marketplace, along with the ability to develop custom apps using Cohesity’s AppSDK. The integrated Cohesity DataGovern SaaS offering also provides sensitive data
discovery, compliance management, and cyber threat response and recovery.

Learn more at Cohesity.com/products/smartfiles© 2021 Cohesity, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cohesity, the Cohesity logo, SnapTree, SpanFS, DataPlatform, DataProtect, Helios, and other Cohesity marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cohesity, Inc. in the US and/or internationally. Other company andproduct names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. This material (a) is intended to provide you information about Cohesity and our business and products; (b) was believed to betrue 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.

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