Hammerspace announces metadata driven workflow enhancements to simplify access to global data

Hammerspace has introduced another leap forward for the data-driven global workforce with the Hammerspace Metadata Plugin, User Initiated File Protection, and an Automated File Reservation. Hammerspace also announced a new integration with Alchemi Data Elasticsearch.

These capabilities enable users to better access, collaborate and get more value from their files globally from their desktop, regardless of which vendor system the data is stored within.

Rich, actionable metadata is critical to deriving value from data. The Hammerspace Metadata Control Plane already enables custom metadata tagging through application integration with the Hammerspace UI, CLI, and open API options.

While machine-generated metadata and data orchestration are crucial to data insights, users often want the ability to take direct actions with their data. These new enhancements to the Hammerspace Global Data Environment make it easy for IT Operations (ITOps) to set global data policies that apply to all data, regardless of which vendor storage it is on or where it is located.

Hammerspace is supplementing these global capabilities by allowing users to create and act on custom metadata from their desktops.

Hammerspace Metadata Plugin

With the introduction of the new Hammerspace Metadata Plugin, users now have direct access to add custom metadata tags and manage metadata-driven workloads from their Windows desktops with a click of their mouse.

• User benefits

With the ability to leverage the Metadata Plugin from their existing Windows desktops, users can directly manage their data policies to complement global policy objectives set by IT administrators. Combined with Hammerspace’s objective-based policies engine, custom metadata can enrich files to trigger downstream workflows, data protection actions and other uses at a file-granular level to mobilize files with metadata directly from a Windows desktop GUI.

Actions users can take with their data through the Hammerspace Metadata Plugin include the ability to:

• Automate data movement across silos or locations for collaboration or other uses.
• Globally link files to cost centers, projects, and more, without moving them.
• Automate workflows transparently to users.
• Ensure that file placement and protection policies are aligned with business rules at a file-granular level across any vendor storage or location.
• Automate data policies to meet corporate compliance and national data sovereignty requirements.

• Administrator benefits

The Hammerspace Metadata Plugin also simplifies the job of ITOps. When combined with automatic metadata inheritance within Hammerspace, the custom tags can trigger automated workflows globally. The plugin enables global data intelligence for functions such as chargeback/showback usage reporting, placement policies aligned per tag, per user, per storage type, and more.

In this way, it also enables implementation of business rules across all digital assets, which may now be applied to classes of data at a file level on any storage type or location. The IT team no longer needs to set policies on each NAS silo; instead, they can apply global data service objectives to meet business needs and enable compliance and data protection requirements.

User-initiated file protection and recovery

Users can now roll back to a previous version of their file(s) with a click of their mouse at a Windows workstation. If a ransomware attack or an inadvertent file change occurs, users do not have to wait on the IT team to recover the file from backup to stay productive.

They can roll back to the previous version of the file they need immediately, no matter which storage system the file is stored on within the Global Data Environment. Integrating existing user workflows with the cross-platform capabilities from Hammerspace extends the user experience without requiring them to learn a new application.

Even features such as the ability to recover previous Windows file versions can now be done directly by users via this integration, reducing the need for users to call IT for help.

File reservation policy

One of the most popular use cases for the Hammerspace Global Data Environment is data collaboration across multiple sites. Two or more users may wish to edit the same file simultaneously, which could cause a write collision on rare occasions.

Hammerspace has implemented a File Reservation capability that allows users to reserve files to mitigate these conflicts. This feature illustrates the power and versatility of the Hammerspace objective-based policies and their ability to elevate the user experience.

Global Audit

Hammerspace now supports System ACLs across both SMB and NFS to create a Global Audit log of file system operations such as file/folder deletes, renames, and other actions. This enhancement is a critical security innovation for decentralized environments to enable persistent System ACLs to be applied across the Global Data Environment, regardless of which storage type or location the file instances reside.

Hammerspace manages the data placement across different sites behind the file system, ensuring that security enforcement is not broken by moving or copying data to other sites or platforms.

Alchemi Data Elasticsearch

Hammerspace has worked closely with Alchemi Data to integrate its Elasticsearch solution with the Global Data Environment. Users can now run searches on the Hammerspace parallel global file system to locate the relevant data they are looking for.

Alchemi Data can also scan documents, including MS Word and PDF files, to locate user-defined keywords. Hammerspace can then harvest these keywords and add them to its metadata, making it far easier to manage and access files for projects, research, organization, corporate governance and compliance.