Introduction to ZebClient

ZebClient accelerates data access speeds and provides a unified data storage solution, delivering both parallel and distributed filesystems features combined with low-cost object storage for backend.

ZebClient meets the demands for high-performance storage, cost-efficiently providing modern applications with seamless, high-throughput access to data, and enabling advanced analytics and decision-making at scale.

How does it work?

ZebClient mounts as a file system on the client side, allowing applications direct file access as if data were stored locally. Upon data write, ZebClient uses compression, striping, and erasure-coding of data, enhancing performance and durability, before sending it to Azure Blob Storage or any S3-compatible object storage, which acts as cold storage. Read operations involve parallel read access, reconstructing of the original data, and local caching for high-speed access. Throughout this process, ZebClient ensures data consistency and integrity, with extremely high throughput for both read and write operations.

Why should you use it?

Based on its low-cost, high-performance cloud-native design adapted for scalability, ZebClient outperforms traditional file systems in terms of data access speeds and cost-efficiency.

ZebClient delivers:

• Cost savings,

• Consistent ultra-high performance for filesystems encompassing the inherent scale-in and scale-out capabilities of Kubernetes environments,

• Extremely high throughput even for large-scale data stores,

• Data integrity through sharding, data placement, and erasure-coding,

• Flexibility, vendor lock-in prevention, and simplified management by disaggregating data storage from compute resources.

ZebClient cost-efficiently scales filesystem access for modern data-intensive applications.

What is ZebClient?

ZebClient is a software that accelerates data access speeds and provides a unified data storage solution, integrating the strengths of both parallel and distributed filesystems and combining that with a low-cost object storage for backend. By combining high-performance parallel file access with the scalability and low cost of object storage, ZebClient offers a versatile and efficient foundation for a wide range of demanding use cases. It is a data solution that addresses the needs of modern and extremely data-intensive applications.

Functions and Benefits Provided by the ZebClient Architecture

The ZebClient architecture provides ultra-high performance, scalability, cost-efficiency, and adaptability to modern data-intensive workloads. Its high-performance design, and resource optimization capabilities make ZebClient a robust data storage solution for distributed data-intense applications.

ZebClient Provides the Following Functions:

Parallel File Access

ZebClient features a filesystem access for distributed simultaneous data retrieval and processing, which:

• Scales data-intensive workloads,

• Makes data available for distributed compute operations.

Distributed Access

ZebClient gives distributed access to data across multiple compute nodes, which:

• Provides accessibility to unified data across geographically dispersed locations,

• Delivers a POSIX-compliant filesystem for advanced workloads, where data consistency is secured and data is always available and updated across all nodes.

Object Storage Backend

The ZebClient architecture is based on object storage as the backend storage infrastructure, which:

• Enables seamless scalability by leveraging the object storage inherent architecture,

• Optimizes data storage, scaling its size dynamically from zero based on need,

• Secures low cost.

High Performance Design

ZebClient is designed to maximize data access performance, using techniques like:

• Storage tiering mechanisms placing frequently accessed data close to applications,

• Optimized data access and retrieval techniques such as striping,

• Option to add a local warm data tier to enhance data access performance to on-premise deployments.

Scalability and Elasticity

ZebClient supports horizontal scaling to accommodate a need for higher compute capacity. The solution also provides:

• Kubernetes-native deployments enabling dynamic resource allocation to handle varying workloads,

• Data storage scalability using cloud-based object storage to provide a filesystem unlimited in size.

Cost-Effective Resource Utilization

ZebClient maximizes the utilization of underlying resources and minimizes cost by providing:

• Optimal object data storage where the storage size is based on actual usage, avoiding the over-provisioning of traditional filesystems,

• A pay-as-you-go business model aligned with cost-effective cloud storage models.

High-Performance Data Access

ZebClient is designed to secure cost-efficient, high performance data access for a wide spectrum of workloads, which:

• Supports use of low-cost object storage for demanding applications such as analytics, AI and machine learning,

• Provides performance uplift to traditional file-based operations,

• Ensures compatibility for seamless integration across diverse environments and data formats.

Data Resilience

ZebClient uses the Zebware proprietary erasure code ZebEC alongside intelligent tiering algorithms which:

• Secures data integrity and availability from its redundancy mechanisms in all deployments where a warm tier is used,

• Immediately writes new data to persistent cold tier enabling data recovery in case of breakdowns or malicious attacks on the infrastructure.

Simplicity

ZebClient provides operational simplicity by:

• Presenting all data, including external S3 data in filesystem format, significantly improving visibility and reducing data administration efforts,

• Easy-to-handle deployments and updates of infrastructure including the Kubernetes-native design for optimal scale-out and scale-in according to current needs,

• Preventing vendor lock-in as ZebClient disaggregates compute from storage and enables easy portability of compute resources.