This week, Chris talks to Jerome McFarland, VP of Marketing with Elastifile, Inc.  Elastifile has developed a scale-out distributed file system called ECFS – the Elastifile Cloud File System. ECFS runs either on-premises, in the public cloud as a marketplace offering or, most recently as a full native storage service in GCP.  In addition to the base file system, Elastifile provides the capability to move any on-premises NAS data into the public cloud with CloudConnect.  ClearTier provides the facility to use the public cloud for tiering of cool or inactive data.

Jerome explains the reasons for developing a cloud-native file system and how the use of standard instances such as those in GCP allow ECFS to be deployed across any public cloud without additional proprietary hardware.  The conversation expands to touch on use cases, both for microservices and traditional applications.

You can find more about Elastifile at www.elastifile.com or try out Elastifile with either of the two links:

* Try Elastifile as a fully-managed service on Google Cloud

* Try Elastifile on AWS Marketplace

Elapsed Time: 00:31:17

 

Timeline

* 00:00:00 – Intros

* 00:01:00 – Where did Elastifile come from?

* 00:04:30 – Why has scale-out been such a challenge to develop?

* 00:06:00 – Three components ECFS, ClearTier and CloudConnect

* 00:07:20 – How does Elastifile Cloud File System work?

* 00:09:00 – ECFS on GCP uses standard instances – no bespoke hardware

* 00:11:00 – How does scalability and adding capacity work?

* 00:12:30 – How does ClearTier work?

* 00:15:00 – CloudConnect provides a way to move data from existing NAS

* 00:17:00 – How are customers aggregating data into the public cloud?

* 00:18:30 – Customer examples – media and entertainment

* 00:21:30 – How does Elastifile support micro-services?

* 00:24:30 – Is there a place for supporting traditional applications?

* 00:27:00 – What’s in the future for Elastifile – object support?

* 00:30:00 – Wrap Up

Related Blogs and Podcasts

* #56 – Defining Scale-out Storage

* Elastifile Cloud File Service Now Available on Google Cloud

* Elastifile presentations at Tech Field Day

Jerome’s Bio

Jerome leads Elastifile’s marketing mission and dedicates himself to sharing the transformative value that Elastifile delivers to its customers. He’s passionate about innovation and has extensive experience marketing and managing cutting-edge software and hardware solutions in the technology sector.  Prior joining Elastifile, Jerome has held senior marketing and product management positions at Maxim Integrated, Diablo Technologies, and OCZ/Toshiba, and began his career as a software engineer at Oracle Corporation. Jerome holds Bachelor of Science degrees in EECS and Literature from MIT and a Master of Engineering degree in EECS, also from MIT.

Copyright (c) 2016-2019 Storage Unpacked.  No reproduction or re-use without permission. Podcast Episode 93A6.