HITS

Western Digital, WekaIO Collaborate on NVMe Flash Platforms, Object Storage (HITS)

Data storage solutions provider Western Digital has partnered with and invested in scalable file storage firm WekaIO, with the intent of delivering scale-out architecture for data-centric high-performance computing (HPC) and machine learning (ML) applications.

The companies had previously partnered to tackle next-gen application workloads, to accelerate the adoption of NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory) flash and object storage in the enterprise.

“Together, Western Digital and WekaIO have enjoyed significant customer wins in the machine learning and HPC markets over the last year, with our joint solution built on the Matrix software and Western Digital’s ActiveScale object storage system,” said Phil Bullinger, SVP and GM of Western Digital’s Data Center Systems business unit. “This continued collaboration will serve to strengthen our combined proposition in HPC and machine learning, where datasets are massive. Together, WekaIO and Western Digital are well positioned to deliver incredible price/performance and value to the market.”

The companies hope the partnership will address the market’s need for better performance with traditional HPC and ML workloads, by enabling WekaIO Matrix, a parallel file system, on Western Digital’s NVMe platforms, and by offering a snapshot capability to ActiveScale object storage systems.

“We have been collaborating with Western Digital for the past two years on joint customer implementations, and the strategic investment firmly underscores the long-term potential our innovations offer the rapidly evolving storage marketplace,” said Liran Zvibel, co-founder and CEO of WekaIO. “Our NVMe-native, parallel file system delivers industry leading performance to the most demanding data-intensive applications. Western Digital and WekaIO’s joint solution delivers incredible economics driven by the right balance of high-performance NVMe flash and the highly-efficient cost of petabyte-scale cloud object storage.”