HGST will demonstrate a new open Ethernet drive architecture offering new flexibility and capabilities for developers and operators of OpenStack cloud software at the OpenStack Summit (@openstack), May 12-16 in Atlanta, GA. The open Ethernet drive architecture demonstration will show how data centers can scale-out storage infrastructures and run new and existing applications distributed directly onto hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) for big data processing, analytics, research queries and other applications that require long-term retention of active data. This open drive architecture has integrated CPU and memory resources running Linux, and can be mixed with existing data center infrastructure, allowing applications the option to run as close to the storage resource layer as possible.

Software-defined storage solutions, including OpenStack Object Storage (code named Swift), Ceph and Red Hat Storage Server (aka Gluster), run in the open architecture without modification. HGST says that an open approach gives developers the flexibility they prefer and require to take advantage of Ethernet drives versus forcing them to modify their software to a vendor-specific API and architecture.

Additionally, HGST announced the support of an initiative to deploy a publicly available community test cluster for OpenStack Object Storage, including 6TB Ultrastar He6 helium-filled HDDs.