Seagate disrupts cloud economics with storage that can cut infrastructure costs by 50%

Seagate is launching a new cloud storage platform today that it says will fundamentally alter the economics for internet infrastructure.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based storage giant says that its Seagate Kinect Open Storage platform is a big leap in scalable storage for the enterprise. It simplifies data management, improves performance and scalability, and lowers the cost of owning cloud infrastructure by up to 50 percent.

“Our internal R&D teams have designed an unique, first-of-its-kind storage architecture to enable cheaper, more scalable object storage solutions that free up IT professionals from having to invest in hardware and software they don’t need— while empowering them with the most innovative storage technology available,” said Rocky Pimentel, Seagate executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer. “This technology optimizes storage solutions for a new era of cloud storage systems, while drastically reducing overall costs.”

The platform gets rid of the storage server tier of data centers by enabling applications to speak directly to the storage device. It reduces expenses associated with the acquisition, deployment, and support of hyperscale storage infrastructures. Companies can realize additional cost savings by reducing their hardware and cutting out power and cooling costs. 

Among the customers trying out the new technology is Yahoo.

“At Yahoo, we’re always looking for new ways to improve efficiency and simplicity of our infrastructure and we’re excited about Seagate’s Kinetic Open Storage platform. Industry has proven time and again that Ethernet always wins— seeing this down to the drive level is a fantastic optimization,” said Kevin Graham, principle storage architect, Yahoo Infrastructure Group. “To that point, we’ve been engaging with Seagate for the past several months on how we can leap ahead of the architectural status quo to provide the most efficient, reliable storage for our users.”

Seagate will launch a new applications programming interface (API) that it will make available under an open source license for connecting Ethernet with Seagate’s hard drives. Seagate said it has a lot of support from companies such as Dell, Basho Technologies, EVault, Huawei, Rackspace, Newisys, Supermicro, and SwiftStack.

“Seagate’s ambitious move into the storage platform space is a natural extension to their core storage business and their new Kinetic Open Storage platform is one that could redefine how data centers are architected going forward,” said, Laura DuBois program vice president IDC Storage Systems, Software and Solutions. “Implementing this technology will empower data centers with more scalable solutions at an industry-low TCO— driving change in the world of storage.”