In tiered Content Software for File system configurations, there are various locations for data storage as follows:
- Metadata is stored only on SSDs.
- Writing new files, adding data to existing files, or modifying the content of files is permanently terminated on the SSD, irrespective of whether the file is stored on the SSD or tiered to an object-store.
- When reading the content of a file, data can be accessed from either the SSD (if it is available on the SSD) or promoted from the object store (if it is not available on the SSD).
This data management approach to data storage on one of two possible media requires system planning to ensure that the most commonly-used data (hot data) resides on the SSD to ensure high performance, In contrast, less-used data (warm data) is stored on the object store.
In the Content Software for File system, this determination of the data storage media is a an entirely seamless, automatic, and transparent process, with users and applications unaware of the transfer of data from SSDs to object stores or from object stores to SSDs.
The data is accessible at all times through the same strongly-consistent POSIX filesystem API, irrespective of where it is stored. Only latency, throughput, and IOPS are affected by the actual storage media.
Furthermore, the Content Software for File system tiers data into chunks, rather than complete files. This enables the intelligent tiering of subsets of a file (and not only complete files) between SSDs and object stores.
The network resources allocated to the object store connections can be controlled. This enables cost control when using cloud-based object storage services since the cost of data stored in the cloud depends on the quantity stored and the number of requests for access made.