Scality RING Reviews

Our use cases for Scality RING include data analytics and AI. Our business is in the insurance industry, and we're using it for claims processing and claims payment. We're using it for audio-video transcripts and digital imaging capture, especially when there are pictures to be attached to a claim for damages and repairs. 

We also use it for audio-video recordings for when the claim agent talks to customers through an application called Mockingbird. Our data analytics teams utilize Scality RING extensively to analyze customer profiles based on their protection plans and to make recommendations.

It's effective for managing large volumes of data. We manage billions of objects in this environment. Scality's architecture, with pooling of resources with HPE Gen9, Gen10, and Gen11 servers, provides a lower-cost alternative to putting all this data on a NAS storage array and spending a lot of money to do the same thing. The pooling of resources across compute, network, and segregated internal storage with flash drives and spinning drives provides good capacity and performance, allowing us to scale up and down and seamlessly expand the RING as needed.

The separation of metadata from object data in Scality RING has certainly been a blessing in disguise, although we have faced instances where metadata overhangs, requiring us to divide the workload. Though there used to be restrictions on metadata servers in a particular RING, that restriction has now been lifted, and the sizing and expansion of metadata servers is no longer a challenge. We consistently monitor the environment and expand as necessary, making the separation of metadata a sound strategy in our object platform.

Cost is a primary driver to keep the Scality platform and grow the platform. We have adopted the GreenLake model that puts us in a very good position in terms of fixed capacity and the capacity to grow. There is an upper ceiling, but by the adoption of the GreenLake model, we can add capacity as needed and shrink as well when there is an outflow of data or there's migration of data to some of the mediums like cloud storage.

Scality RING's capacity and performance scaling across sites and clouds have positively affected our operational efficiency. We have not had any major outages for the last 3-4 years, and I consider Scality as an enterprise platform, treating it as critical for mission-related operations due to its impact on applications such as claims and payment processing.

Scality RING's ability to offer cyber resilience against ransomware threats is definitely needed in today's marketplace. Features such as object lock, version control, and lifecycle policies provide part of the functionality needed for anti-ransomware and cyber recovery, but we need a separate RING to recover from attacks. Overall, it is pretty good.

Scality RING is scalable in handling modern workloads such as AI and backup. We are using it from a data protection perspective for applications such as MongoDB and plan to use it as a third source for recovery, compliant with NYDFS regulations that call for three copies of data at two different locations.

Scality RING has helped me optimize cloud deployments. We have separate application teams focused on the cloud. The on-prem S3 storage provided by Scality facilitates moving data to and from the cloud using native AWS tools such as DataSync, enabling faster go-to-market strategies when we need additional GPU cores for analysis.

We use the multi-scale architecture feature of Scality RING. Scality RING has influenced our approach to scaling in different dimensions by providing a cost-effective solution for the tremendous amount of data we generate every day for each customer. It allows us to store, sort, and analyze data effectively while meeting our performance thresholds. 

There are too many changes because it's software-defined storage and host-based. They should reduce the number of patches and enhance product reliability and stability. When releasing new versions, they should perform thorough quality checks instead of flooding us with patches. They should prioritize quality over timeliness to minimize customer disruptions and not force customers into a cycle of fixes that interfere with daily work.

The quality of releases and version control has to be improved tremendously. You don't release a version just because it's time to release a version, and then let the customers find out all the bugs in it. They have to reduce the amount of work customers have to do because of repeated fixes. I would rather have them take some extra time, do their due diligence, do their testing thoroughly, and make sure there are very few customer disruptions. The quality of the release should be very high.

I have been using Scality RING for almost 5 years.

I have contacted Scality's technical support; professional services assist us primarily when we expand the RING. The quality of Scality's support is around 80% to 90% currently. While they are responsive, there is still room for improvement in their response time, and same-day responses are greatly appreciated, with faster response times being essential. They shouldn't take weeks.

Positive

The initial deployment of Scality RING has improved tremendously over the years; we now have a better plan for expanding the RING. It used to take 3 to 6 months to distribute data, but we now follow clear-cut procedures that reduce this duration significantly.

We have experienced cost savings with the software-defined, pay-as-you-grow model of Scality RING. Compared to flash arrays, fiber channel-based arrays, or all-flash arrays, the cost per gig for Scality RING's software-defined storage platform is significantly lower. For instance, while the cost per gig on a block storage platform may be $2, it's $1.50 for NAS, and only $0.50 for object storage, leading to a remarkable 75% reduction in costs by utilizing the Scality platform.

I have considered alternatives for Scality RING, such as ECS and NetApp Storage Grid. However, we have not implemented any other solution, relying instead on Scality for private cloud and utilizing public cloud options such as AWS or Azure.

I would rate Scality RING an eight out of ten.

The main use cases for Scality RING involve data that needs to be stored long-term and that we do not want to keep in production. Mainly, these are analytical data from studies, as well as raw data and analytical data that we need to be able to access again if a situation arises that requires us to verify the accuracy of our data. We also manage files over fileshares with NFS and SMB fileshares, which means we provide Unix and Windows fileshares. While we have S3, we are not fully ready for it yet; the house is still not S3 ready, but we are actually in the starting blocks regarding that.

The best functionality in Scality RING is the ability to handle three interfaces over a single infrastructure: S3, NFS, and SMB. This is actually what stands out for us, along with the capability to create various configurations for different use cases, such as determining how long something should be retained and how long it should remain unchanged. You can set smaller and larger time intervals for retention. Furthermore, the entire S3 stack seems to be very performant and is also highly compatible with the S3 standard.

The administration of large data volumes with the Scality RING user interface is straightforward for us, as it involves familiar procedures for S3, NFS, and SMB. For software updates, we have always involved Scality to handle those; we have not done software updates ourselves. However, we have autonomously done firmware updates or operating system updates and replaced any defective hard disks. Once you understand how it works, it is nothing special and can be managed; it is not a cryptic system.

The advantage of using Scality RING is that all data stored is protected via Erasure Coding on the ring system. We have a ring with three locations, each with two servers, and with Erasure Coding, the data is sufficiently protected. By setting a time limit in which data can no longer be altered—typically 24 hours for regular fileshares—files are retained and then set as immutable after 24 hours in the ring, meaning they are not backed up any further.

What we are currently missing and will be demanding in the new tender is an additional external backup of all data, ideally on a simple system, to safeguard against any severe local incidents so that we still have the data protected elsewhere. If all three locations were to fail, we would have nothing left.

If I had a wish list for improving Scality RING, I would suggest enhancing the generation of file shares and overall administration, which feels somewhat outdated. I could envision building a dashboard that would allow for relatively simple configuration tasks because currently, it is documented, but many colleagues hesitate to engage with the system.

I have been using Scality RING in my work for five or six years, and I believe we are now in the sixth year.

I would say that Scality RING is very stable at the moment. We had a brief phase where we were a bit overloaded, and if a hardware failure had occurred, it would have been shaky, but it was never the case where the system was unavailable. The first layer of security did fail at one point, which felt uneasy until it was resolved. However, since the last upgrade about two years ago, we only see maybe one defective hard disk per quarter, and everything else runs stably and performs as expected, even with aging hardware.

Concerning scalability with Scality RING in daily use, we purchased the system with a basic capacity and expanded it in two stages, also doubling the metadata capacity. Everything has gone smoothly without any major complications, and the next step will depend on the outcomes of the tender.

I would rate the customer support from Scality RING at an 8+ based on a scale of 1 to 10. 

I am generally satisfied with the service. Sometimes, it depends on the support agent's understanding, as they may forget that we do not interact with the system day-to-day and deal with various other tasks. When I inquire, 'How do I do this?' and receive a link to a document in response, while I can certainly read it myself, it feels like the human touch of a helpful individual can make a significant difference. Thankfully, I have also had good colleagues who have provided considerable assistance during challenging times, especially when we faced issues; they guided us through everything. Individuals such as Peter Mikolastik really make a difference by saying, 'Come on, what is the problem? I will help you,' rather than just brushing things off.

Before switching to Scality RING, we used an SAP archive solution that involved writing to WORM drives for archiving SAP data. Over time, these data were migrated to file shares with WORM functionality, bringing along some other data such as images. Eventually, it became too much, and we decided it was time to take the next step toward needing a scalable archiving system, which is why we opted for Scality RING.

The initial setup process was unproblematic.

Peter Mikolastik guided us through executing the necessary tasks while we provided the needed space, power, and network connections. It went quite smoothly, including the training provided.

There has been no significant reduction in operational costs in the context of using Scality RING. 

I would say it is not a cheap solution, but it is also not extremely overpriced; it is reasonably priced. Looking at initial costs, operating costs, or return on investment, I do not see it significantly standing out either positively or negatively.

Regarding setup costs and licensing, our initial experience is somewhat dated now as we made a comprehensive purchase, including hardware, software, and system setup, which Scality handled at the time.

During the decision-making process, we briefly evaluated a NetApp product, but we found it to be functional and, pricing-wise, a bit on the expensive side compared to what we wanted. We also tried Dell EMC, but at that time, they were quite slow and costly.

We are not using the pay-as-you-grow model of Scality RING; we are still doing things in an old-fashioned way by purchasing and operating it. The pay-per-use models have not yet arrived at our organization due to our finances; our finance department still believes in purchasing and then using the solution instead of these service models. We are not going down that path at the moment, but are simply expanding gradually or life-cycling when necessary.

We do not have any cloud integration with our data stored on Scality RING, as we are not allowed to do that; medical data needs to be encrypted. We also do not see a need for cloud services with the data on the Scality RING. As mentioned earlier, we want to create a second copy in an external data center for added protection, and we only trust what we can manage ourselves.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Scality RING an 8.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE: (GERMAN)

Vereinheitlicht das Datenmanagement mit vielseitigen Schnittstellen für unterschiedliche Anforderungen

Was ist unser primärer Anwendungsfall?
Die Hauptanwendungsfälle für Scality RING betreffen Daten, die langfristig gespeichert werden müssen und nicht mehr im Produktivsystem verbleiben sollen. Dabei handelt es sich hauptsächlich um Analysedaten aus Studien sowie Rohdaten und Analysedaten, auf die wir im Bedarfsfall zur Überprüfung der Datenkorrektheit wieder zugreifen müssen.
Wir verwalten außerdem Dateien über Fileshares mit NFS- und SMB-Freigaben, d. h. wir stellen sowohl Unix- als auch Windows-Freigaben zur Verfügung. Zwar haben wir auch S3, sind dafür aber noch nicht vollständig bereit – unser Haus ist noch nicht S3-fähig, aber wir stehen in den Startlöchern.

Was ist am wertvollsten?
Die beste Funktionalität von Scality RING ist für uns die Möglichkeit, drei Schnittstellen auf einer einzigen Infrastruktur zu betreiben: S3, NFS und SMB. Das ist für uns wirklich herausragend, zusammen mit der Fähigkeit, unterschiedliche Konfigurationen für verschiedene Anwendungsfälle zu definieren – etwa, wie lange Daten aufbewahrt oder unverändert bleiben sollen. Man kann kleinere und größere Zeiträume für die Aufbewahrung definieren. Zudem wirkt der gesamte S3-Stack sehr performant und ist hochgradig kompatibel zum S3-Standard.

Die Verwaltung großer Datenmengen über die Benutzeroberfläche von Scality RING ist für uns unkompliziert, da sie auf bekannten Abläufen für S3, NFS und SMB basiert. Software-Updates haben wir bisher immer durch Scality durchführen lassen – diese übernehmen wir nicht selbst. Firmware- und Betriebssystem-Updates sowie der Austausch defekter Festplatten wurden jedoch von uns eigenständig durchgeführt. Wenn man einmal verstanden hat, wie das System funktioniert, ist es nichts Besonderes und gut handhabbar – kein kryptisches System.

Was muss verbessert werden?
Ein Vorteil von Scality RING ist, dass alle gespeicherten Daten durch Erasure Coding im Ring-System geschützt sind. Wir haben einen Ring mit drei Standorten, jeweils mit zwei Servern. Durch Erasure Coding ist die Datenhaltung ausreichend geschützt. Durch die Festlegung eines Zeitraums, in dem Daten nicht mehr verändert werden können – in der Regel 24 Stunden für normale Fileshares – bleiben Dateien erhalten und werden danach als unveränderbar (immutable) markiert. Danach erfolgt keine weitere Sicherung mehr.

Was uns derzeit fehlt und in der kommenden Ausschreibung gefordert wird, ist ein zusätzliches externes Backup aller Daten, idealerweise auf einem einfachen System, um uns gegen schwerwiegende lokale Vorfälle abzusichern – damit wir die Daten dennoch an einem anderen Ort geschützt haben. Wenn alle drei Standorte ausfallen sollten, hätten wir derzeit keinen Zugriff mehr auf die Daten.

Wenn ich mir etwas zur Verbesserung von Scality RING wünschen dürfte, dann wäre es eine modernere Verwaltung von Freigaben und eine insgesamt zeitgemäßere Administration. Ich könnte mir ein Dashboard vorstellen, über das sich Konfigurationen relativ einfach umsetzen lassen. Derzeit ist alles dokumentiert, aber viele Kollegen zögern, sich mit dem System zu befassen.

Wie lange verwende ich die Lösung schon?
Ich arbeite seit fünf oder sechs Jahren mit Scality RING. Ich denke, wir befinden uns mittlerweile im sechsten Jahr.

Wie bewerte ich die Stabilität der Lösung?
Ich würde sagen, Scality RING ist aktuell sehr stabil. Wir hatten eine Phase, in der wir an der Kapazitätsgrenze waren – wenn da ein Hardwareausfall passiert wäre, hätte es kritisch werden können. Aber das System war nie komplett nicht verfügbar. Die erste Sicherheitsschicht ist einmal ausgefallen, das war unangenehm, bis es behoben war. Seit dem letzten Upgrade vor etwa zwei Jahren sehen wir vielleicht eine defekte Festplatte pro Quartal – alles andere läuft stabil und wie erwartet, auch mit älterer Hardware.

Wie bewerte ich die Skalierbarkeit der Lösung?
Was die Skalierbarkeit im Alltag betrifft: Wir haben das System mit einer Basiskapazität gekauft und in zwei Schritten erweitert, dabei auch die Metadatenkapazität verdoppelt. Alles verlief reibungslos und ohne große Komplikationen. Der nächste Schritt hängt vom Ausgang der Ausschreibung ab.

Wie ist der Kundenservice und Support?
Ich würde den Kundensupport von Scality RING mit 8+ auf einer Skala von 1 bis 10 bewerten.

Insgesamt bin ich mit dem Service zufrieden. Es hängt manchmal vom jeweiligen Support-Mitarbeiter ab – sie vergessen mitunter, dass wir nicht täglich mit dem System arbeiten und viele andere Aufgaben haben. Wenn ich frage: „Wie geht das?“ und dann nur einen Link zur Dokumentation bekomme – ja, ich kann das auch selbst lesen, aber ein bisschen Menschlichkeit und Hilfsbereitschaft machen einen großen Unterschied. Glücklicherweise hatte ich auch gute Kollegen an meiner Seite, die in schwierigen Situationen sehr geholfen haben – insbesondere Peter Mikolastik hat uns immer wieder unterstützt und gesagt: „Was ist das Problem? Ich helfe euch.“ Solche Leute machen den Unterschied aus.

Welche Lösung hatte ich vorher und warum habe ich gewechselt?
Vor Scality RING hatten wir eine SAP-Archivlösung mit WORM-Laufwerken zur Archivierung von SAP-Daten. Diese Daten wurden mit der Zeit auf Fileshares mit WORM-Funktionalität migriert, darunter auch andere Daten wie Bilder. Irgendwann wurde das zu viel, und wir brauchten eine skalierbare Archivlösung – so kamen wir zu Scality RING.

Wie war das initiale Setup?
Die Erstinstallation verlief problemlos.

Wie war das Implementierungsteam?
Peter Mikolastik hat uns bei der Durchführung aller notwendigen Aufgaben begleitet. Wir haben Strom, Netzwerk und Platz bereitgestellt – alles verlief sehr reibungslos, inklusive Schulung.

Wie war unser ROI?
Die Betriebskosten wurden durch Scality RING nicht signifikant reduziert. Es ist keine günstige Lösung, aber auch nicht überteuert – insgesamt angemessen. Bei Anschaffungskosten, Betriebskosten oder ROI fällt nichts besonders positiv oder negativ auf.

Wie waren unsere Erfahrungen mit Preisgestaltung, Einrichtung und Lizenzierung?
Unsere Erfahrungen stammen noch aus der Anfangszeit, als wir ein Komplettpaket gekauft haben – Hardware, Software und Systemeinrichtung durch Scality.

Welche anderen Lösungen wurden evaluiert?
Wir haben kurzzeitig ein Produkt von NetApp in Betracht gezogen – funktional, aber im Vergleich zu teuer. Dell EMC haben wir ebenfalls getestet – damals waren sie sehr langsam und ebenfalls teuer.

Habe ich sonstige Ratschläge?
Wir nutzen das Pay-as-you-grow-Modell von Scality RING nicht. Bei uns wird weiterhin klassisch gekauft und betrieben. Nutzungsbasierte Modelle sind bei uns noch nicht angekommen – unsere Finanzabteilung bevorzugt weiterhin Kaufmodelle. Daher wachsen wir nur schrittweise oder ersetzen Komponenten im Lifecycle-Prozess.

Es gibt keine Cloud-Integration unserer auf Scality RING gespeicherten Daten, da uns das untersagt ist – medizinische Daten müssen verschlüsselt sein. Außerdem sehen wir keinen Bedarf für Cloud-Dienste im Zusammenhang mit diesen Daten. Wie erwähnt, wollen wir eine zweite Kopie in einem externen Rechenzentrum erstellen – und wir vertrauen nur dem, was wir selbst betreiben können.

Auf einer Skala von 1 bis 10 bewerte ich Scality RING mit einer 8.

Scality RING was acquired primarily as a backup target, as we needed a large, scalable storage due to an original large project that generated massive data backups, which unfortunately did not materialize as we hoped; however, we still use it as a backup, storing archive backups and large backup files. 

We have also started to create buckets for clients with external large storage needs, but mainly, it serves as our backup destination. 

Scality RING plays the role of the last bastion in our backup strategy against cyber threats and ransomware, adhering to a 3-2-1 backup schema as it serves as the final destination for all backups, separate from those needing quick availability.

The best functionality of Scality RING is its ease of administration; it is out of the box and was set up for us in collaboration with Scality and HP. What we appreciate most is the ease of use, as it is immediately ready for action. We also purchased the extensive support package because we unfortunately do not have enough manpower for larger administration tasks. 

While my Kubernetes and open-source teams are quite skilled with S3, we don't have enough time to set up a viable, productive solution, which is why we decided to buy this solution. The RING is deployed in our data center, stretched over two fire zones, effectively mirrored, allowing us to lose one fire zone and still have the RING functional, which was a requirement for us.

I would like for them to improve the ability for customers to manage their logins and change passwords themselves, as this functionality is not available in the version we have. 

We will conduct an update soon, which may address this small disadvantage since we are forced to create logins for clients, know the secrets, and have to share them somehow. A self-service portal for customers to log in and change forgotten passwords would be desirable. 

Additionally, I recently heard from our S3 admin that while Scality claims to be 100% compatible with Amazon S3, it seems this isn't entirely true; there are instances where specific backup tools require S3 to create checksums over written backups, which Scality does not support, unlike Amazon S3. While these are small details, they would be areas for improvement.

We have been using Scality RING for nearly three years now.

The system is very stable; it has never let us down in operation despite some disk failures; it operates as intended.

We do not currently use the Multi-Scale Architecture function of Scality RING because the anticipated growth has not occurred as initially envisioned; we have around 500 TB and have not yet reached the limits that would necessitate scaling.

I would rate customer service and technical support at a solid eight on a scale of 1 to 10, even though we have not encountered very many cases in which we needed to contact support.

Positive

We switched to Scality RING because we required scalable storage and wanted to implement a modern storage solution, as we focus on Kubernetes and microservices in the long term. There was also the idea of possibly offering cloud backup, where S3 serves as an attractive storage option. 

Running the cloud ourselves was not an option for us as we needed an on-prem solution. 

I admit we tried several open-source projects that were good, but they presented maintenance issues requiring manpower.

I asked our service partner, HP, if they offered S3, and they informed me about their partnership with Scality, which initiated our contact. Previously, I had experience with a competitor of Scality at my last company, but that was not on the table here.

My experience with the setup and installation of Scality RING was very good; it appeared very competent and functioned well.

The engineer who assisted us did an excellent job, and we had made all necessary preparations on our side, which facilitated the process.

We recently considered switching to Artesca, especially since the decision regarding RING's renewal is approaching in two years. We have looked into this sister product, acknowledging that we still lack substantial knowledge about it. 

We have plans to meet with a consultant soon for a presentation about it, and while it presents an interesting option, a definitive statement is pending further internal discussions.

We have not observed any impacts from the separation of metadata and object data concerning storage load and performance; for us, "no news is good news." It is a target we can write to, and we have not identified any bottlenecks, as the performance for everything we have in terms of applications is adequate, which is good.

I cannot say much regarding improvements in the efficiency of storage management, as the growth did not meet our expectations, and what we currently have is more than sufficient. I can only state that I have not found particularly positive aspects, but there have been no negatives either.

It does its job, and we are satisfied. Ultimately, it has become apparent that Scality RING may be too large for us now, especially since the project that initially warranted the solution did not materialize. We currently utilize it, are satisfied with it, and will reassess our situation two years from now or before the end of that period to determine our next steps. 

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Scality RING an eight overall.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE: (GERMAN)

Problemlose Verwaltung stärkt unsere Backup-Strategie

Was ist unser primärer Anwendungsfall?
Scality RING wurde hauptsächlich als Backup-Ziel angeschafft, da wir aufgrund eines ursprünglich großen Projekts, das massive Daten-Backups generieren sollte, großen, skalierbaren Speicher benötigten. Dieses Projekt hat sich jedoch leider nicht wie erhofft entwickelt; trotzdem nutzen wir RING weiterhin für Backups, insbesondere zur Archivierung und Speicherung großer Backup-Dateien.

Wir haben außerdem begonnen, Buckets für Kunden mit externem Speicherbedarf anzulegen, aber hauptsächlich dient RING als unser Backup-Ziel.

Scality RING ist das letzte Bollwerk in unserer Backup-Strategie gegen Cyberbedrohungen und Ransomware und folgt einem 3-2-1-Backup-Schema, da es als letzte Backup-Station dient, getrennt von den Backups, die schnell verfügbar sein müssen.

Was ist besonders wertvoll?
Die beste Funktionalität von Scality RING ist die einfache Verwaltung. Es ist „out of the box“ einsatzbereit und wurde gemeinsam mit Scality und HP eingerichtet. Was wir besonders schätzen, ist die Benutzerfreundlichkeit – es war sofort einsatzbereit.

Wir haben auch das umfangreiche Support-Paket gekauft, da uns leider die personellen Kapazitäten für größere administrative Aufgaben fehlen.

Obwohl meine Kubernetes- und Open-Source-Teams durchaus Erfahrung mit S3 haben, fehlt uns die Zeit, eine tragfähige, produktive Lösung selbst aufzubauen. Daher haben wir uns für dieses Produkt entschieden. RING ist in unserem Rechenzentrum über zwei Brandabschnitte verteilt und effektiv gespiegelt. So können wir einen Brandabschnitt verlieren und dennoch funktionsfähig bleiben – das war für uns eine Voraussetzung.

Was könnte verbessert werden?
Ich würde mir wünschen, dass Kunden ihre Logins selbst verwalten und Passwörter selbstständig ändern können. Diese Funktionalität ist in unserer Version derzeit nicht verfügbar.

Wir werden bald ein Update durchführen, das diesen kleinen Nachteil möglicherweise behebt, da wir derzeit gezwungen sind, Logins für Kunden zu erstellen, deren Geheimnisse zu kennen und diese irgendwie weiterzugeben. Ein Self-Service-Portal zur Passwortverwaltung wäre wünschenswert.

Außerdem habe ich kürzlich von unserem S3-Administrator erfahren, dass Scality zwar angibt, zu 100 % mit Amazon S3 kompatibel zu sein, dies aber nicht ganz zutrifft. Es gibt Fälle, in denen bestimmte Backup-Tools Checksummen über die geschriebenen Backups erzeugen müssen, was Scality im Gegensatz zu Amazon S3 nicht unterstützt. Es sind kleine Details, aber auch dies sind Punkte, die verbessert werden könnten.

Wie lange nutze ich die Lösung bereits?
Wir verwenden Scality RING seit fast drei Jahren.

Wie beurteile ich die Stabilität der Lösung?
Das System ist sehr stabil; es hat uns trotz einiger Festplattenausfälle im Betrieb nie im Stich gelassen und funktioniert wie vorgesehen.

Wie beurteile ich die Skalierbarkeit der Lösung?
Wir nutzen derzeit nicht die Multi-Scale-Architektur von Scality RING, da das erwartete Wachstum nicht eingetreten ist. Wir verfügen über etwa 500 TB Speicher und haben die Skalierungsgrenzen noch nicht erreicht.

Wie sind Kundendienst und Support?
Ich bewerte den Kundenservice und technischen Support mit soliden acht von zehn Punkten, obwohl wir bisher nicht oft auf den Support angewiesen waren.

Wie würden Sie den Kundendienst und Support bewerten?
Positiv.

Welche Lösung habe ich vorher verwendet und warum habe ich gewechselt?
Wir sind zu Scality RING gewechselt, da wir skalierbaren Speicher benötigten und eine moderne Speicherlösung implementieren wollten – langfristig setzen wir auf Kubernetes und Microservices.

Es bestand auch die Idee, eventuell Cloud-Backup anzubieten, wobei S3 als Speicherlösung attraktiv ist. Eine eigene Cloud zu betreiben kam für uns jedoch nicht infrage, da wir eine On-Premises-Lösung benötigten.

Ich gebe zu, dass wir verschiedene Open-Source-Projekte getestet haben, die gut waren, jedoch Wartungsaufwand und Personalressourcen erforderten.

Ich fragte unseren Servicepartner HP, ob sie S3 anbieten. Sie informierten mich über ihre Partnerschaft mit Scality – so kam der Kontakt zustande. In meiner vorherigen Firma hatte ich Erfahrung mit einem Scality-Wettbewerber, aber dieser war hier keine Option.

Wie war die ursprüngliche Einrichtung?
Meine Erfahrung mit der Einrichtung und Installation von Scality RING war sehr gut. Sie verlief professionell und funktionierte einwandfrei.

Wie war das Implementierungsteam?
Der Techniker, der uns unterstützte, machte einen hervorragenden Job. Wir hatten auf unserer Seite alle Vorbereitungen getroffen, was den Prozess vereinfachte.

Welche anderen Lösungen habe ich evaluiert?
Wir haben kürzlich erwogen, zu Artesca zu wechseln, insbesondere da in zwei Jahren die Entscheidung zur Vertragsverlängerung für RING ansteht. Wir haben uns mit dem Schwesterprodukt beschäftigt, geben aber zu, dass wir noch nicht genug darüber wissen.

Wir planen, bald ein Beratungsgespräch mit einer Präsentation dazu zu führen. Es ist eine interessante Option, aber eine endgültige Entscheidung steht noch aus.

Welchen weiteren Rat habe ich?
Wir haben keine Auswirkungen der Trennung von Metadaten und Objektdaten auf die Speicherbelastung oder -leistung festgestellt – für uns gilt: "Keine Nachrichten sind gute Nachrichten." Es ist ein Ziel, auf das wir schreiben können, und wir haben keine Engpässe festgestellt. Die Leistung für unsere Anwendungen ist zufriedenstellend – das ist gut.

Ich kann nicht viel zur Verbesserung der Effizienz des Speichermanagements sagen, da das erwartete Wachstum ausgeblieben ist und das derzeitige System mehr als ausreichend ist. Ich kann lediglich sagen, dass wir keine besonderen positiven, aber auch keine negativen Aspekte festgestellt haben.

Es erfüllt seinen Zweck, und wir sind zufrieden. Letztendlich hat sich gezeigt, dass Scality RING für uns derzeit vielleicht etwas zu groß ist, da das ursprünglich geplante Projekt nicht zustande kam. Wir nutzen es weiterhin, sind zufrieden und werden unsere Situation in spätestens zwei Jahren erneut bewerten.

Auf einer Skala von 1 bis 10 bewerte ich Scality RING insgesamt mit acht Punkten.

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Private Cloud

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Sonstige

Scality RING is used exclusively for S3 object storage. Scality RING is an alternative to Amazon S3, allowing customers to have their own on-premises S3 infrastructure when needed. The features are very close to Amazon, with Scality RING's S3 implementation tending to be very similar to Amazon's standards, including features and user experience.

In my experience with Scality RING, I worked for a big banking company that had on-premises cloud and on-premises S3 infrastructure. They used features such as resiliency and deployment across three availability zones, as well as replication and cross-region replication because they deployed across two regions. There are new features for high performance, such as for AI workloads, but these were not implemented during my time there, as I finished my work with them three months ago and am now in another area.

Scality RING was widely used in our private cloud for storing large capacities and volumes, and also served to store backups for databases, making it very useful. Utilizing S3 is cheaper than SAN or NAS for backup storage, and we can manage large volumes for backups and other uses. While not intended for hot data, it performs well for other cases.

The separation of metadata from object data significantly influences storage performance, as metadata uses NVMe flash storage, serving as an accelerator for accessing data. While data resides on traditional spinning hard disk drives, using NVMe storage for metadata allows for fast access to data, especially for large volumes and a large number of objects. The performance regarding metadata is particularly vital when managing a high number of objects; thus, dedicating servers and fast storage to metadata improves handling those large object counts, which we optimized during our operations, resulting in satisfactory outcomes.

The improvement with Scality RING is the ability to manage huge volumes and the easy scalability when dealing with capacity growth and management. We can buy servers, install them, and hot upgrade the capacity without requiring downtime. Everything is available through an API, allowing end users to manage their storage conveniently without needing requests or tickets; they can allocate, delete, and move storage as required, making operations easier for the end user.

Scality RING has room for improvement, particularly in having a supervisor external to Scality RING, which is key for management. I believe they need to enhance the stability and ease of management for upgrades and migration of the supervisor. Additionally, improving the metadata component is essential, as while we achieved significant enhancements through dedicated servers, NVMe storage, and powerful CPUs, limitations still exist in the metadata engine that need addressing, based on my experience with occasional issues.

I have been using Scality RING for four years and a half.

I would rate the stability of Scality RING as eight.

I find the scalability to be very satisfactory, and I also rate it as eight.

I would rate the technical support from the vendor as six or seven, as it often varies based on whom you are working with; sometimes the support is excellent, while at other times, it falls short. On average, I would rate it as a seven.

Positive

Comparing Scality RING with other solutions, I find it to be behind Amazon in the S3 technology space, as Amazon is one of the pioneers. I do not prefer Dell's S3 solutions, which I find inferior. Pure Storage is new to S3 and lacks mature features, although I appreciate their block storage offerings. Regarding Red Hat, using Ceph for S3, I have not tested it but believe it is not yet widely adopted or mature. Scality maintains a strong position behind Amazon due to its experience and large user base.

I find the deployment of a brand-new Scality RING installation to be easy and not overly complicated. However, upgrades and migration are more complex and can be sensitive; sometimes we need support from the Scality team. While setting up a new Scality environment is quite straightforward, extensions, migration, and server replacements often require assistance from Scality, which occurs quite frequently.

Managing Scality RING involves a dedicated team of five or six persons, with half focusing on infrastructure and the others on developing an API for user consumption of S3, as Scality RING already has an API. We have to manage multiple instances of Scality RING, specifically five, with one large installation containing sixty petabytes of data alongside smaller installations.

I was not directly involved in the cost-saving discussions related to the pay-as-you-grow model with Scality RING, so I do not have detailed insights. From a distance, I observed the purchasing process, which was smooth and flexible. This model is indeed helpful because we do not need to purchase all required capacity upfront; we can buy only what we need based on expected growth for twelve months, with annual updates. While not always perfect due to sometimes rapid growth, we managed to anticipate demands adequately, and did not face any capacity issues, adapting as needed while working with Scality.

I assess the simplicity of managing large volumes of data with Scality RING's interface as feasible, but it requires a minimum of skills. With the right staff, managing it is easy, as all the enablers are there; however, I would rate the difficulty as intermediate.

I would rate the overhead as nonexistent with the right sizing of staff managing Scality RING platform. However, if a storage team deals with other technologies, they need to be cautious, as Scality RING requires day-to-day monitoring to check performance and potential issues. Sometimes we need to restart components, including metadata, so it is not just plug and play; day-to-day attention is necessary, but we can leverage vendor-provided monitoring tools, including dashboards to identify potential issues, allowing us to help manage overhead as much as possible.

I assess Scality RING as well-fitted to handle modern workloads such as AI and backup. They have developed a special edition optimized for AI, featuring NVMe storage and a specialized metadata engine, although I personally did not experiment with it. However, I am confident it addresses AI workload needs effectively based on presentations I have seen.

I would rate this review overall as an eight.

Scality RING serves multiple use cases for storage, for GenAI and analytics, unstructured and structured data, backups and recovery, and long-term retention. It can fulfill five to six use cases.

The best features of Scality RING include multiple aspects, but a few that we specifically appreciate are the scalability platform, which allows us to scale our growth. 

Second is metadata indexing and S3 API capabilities that allow us to access the data from one source. 

The use of Scality RING has led to significant improvements in our storage management efficiency. We can estimate the volume with around 20 petabytes, estimating having an NFS file system with 20 petabytes and 30 billion objects.

There are areas that may have room for improvement, and the Scality team is aware of it. You can obtain information directly from them about areas of improvement they need to address. 

We do experience some challenges from time to time when we have to scale up. We do see some areas where we have much higher operations or much higher queries, Scality sometimes chokes up. 

The good news is that the Scality team is aware of it. They know exactly what issues we are facing, what we are looking for, and how to address them. Because of the long-term relationship we have developed with them, when they see our use case and try to address our issues, once they resolve the issue, they ensure that the product is updated with this use case so the next customer does not run into this problem. It's a scale problem, querying problem when the number of operations becomes too high.

I have been using Scality RING for six to seven years, possibly more.

I would rate the stability of Scality RING as having occasional downtimes, bugs, and glitches that we see from time to time on the metadata indexing portion of it. 

Overall, when we see downtime and we try to reach out to Scality, we do get support pretty fast, and we are back up and operational within hours instead of days. This is a massive ecosystem, and generally, 95% of the time, it's healthy and operational, but there are occasional outages that we will see here and there that will throw us back. It comes back up faster with the help and support from their support group.

Regarding scalability, it's quite scalable, but there are some hiccups along the way. I would rate it around eight to nine.

For technical support, I would rate it as high as a nine.

Before we onboarded Scality RING, we definitely did a POC on different solutions. One of the biggest requirements for us is scale. 

As I mentioned, we started with a million objects and in six years, we have grown up to 30 billion objects, so scalability was very important for us. 

In the last five or six years, other technologies have enabled scaling. However, Scality being a partner for HPE, it's also our responsibility to ensure that the partner products are certified and tested so that we can have joint revenue coming to the companies. That's where we have to stick with our partners. If we have another partner, we will test another partner.

The deployment of Scality RING on-premises was not easy when we started. We learned over the six years, and now we know what to do. Now it's easier for us, absolutely easier for us. We know what we need to do if we have to scale up. However, when you do this type of activity of scaling, you will have to engage Scality professional support all the time. If I were to give a suggestion in this area, Scality should come up with a solution where customers can do self-upgrades. 

Customers should be able to do a lot of things by themselves and not have to rely on Scality's professional support. They are aware of it. We have given them that feedback, so this is not going to be new for them.

Every solution, including Scality RING, needs maintenance: time-to-time upgrades, time-to-time patching, and time-to-time vulnerability management. Every time we do the maintenance and this type of activity, it is required to communicate and coordinate with Scality's professional support. 

We have technical team members who can do this work without any problems and without any issues. However, they do end up saying that this type of activity needs to be done under the guidance of professional support. There is a need to do this all the time.

The solution has helped in reducing our operational overhead. If you have 1,000 NFS servers, imagine how many operational overheads I would have to manage, maintain, scale, patch, and vulnerability management on the NFS servers and volumes versus having a single cluster with 30 nodes getting this thing done and staying intact. If I have to gauge, it has definitely reduced on this ecosystem for comparative purposes by at least 20 to 30%.

When comparing Scality RING to other products and vendors on the market, you need to specify which vendors for a specific comparison. If you're talking about MinIO or Weka, each of them has a different use case. 

For our specific use case that we have onboarded Scality with, there are very limited vendors that can meet this type of requirement. Of course, with the technology change and technology shift happening, other vendors are coming up. 

For us, this is the solution that works for our use case. We continue to evaluate other solutions from time to time to see if there are use cases that we can bring in or if there are other solutions that we can try for a different use case. For the use case that we have today in our ecosystem, in our environment, and in our business, Scality is, if I have to rank the top three, it will fit in the top three outcomes at this point in time.

I would recommend Scality RING to other users. However, I always advise any customer or future prospect to do their due diligence on other products. Make sure that your use case gets the solution it deserves, not just because of customer feedback. 

The customer has a specific use case, and that's why we chose Scality. A prospect may have a different use case, and there might be a different solution associated with it. The customer should always do due diligence on multiple products to see which one meets their needs for their use case. If Scality is where it fits in, then we know that it's Scality. For our use case, MinIO did not work because of its scale, for the scale that we needed at that point in time. In somebody's use case, MinIO can work if they want to go horizontally or to smaller rings. Depending upon the customer use case, we recommend Scality if the use case that we have is similar to one that the customer may have.

Our overall rating is 8.5 out of 10.

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