Beyond the WORM with MinIO object storage

I find the terminology of WORM (Write Once Read Many) coming back into the IT speak in recent years. In the era of rip and burn, WORM was a natural thing where many of us “youngsters” used to copy files to a blank CD or DVD. I got know about how WORM worked when I learned that the laser in the CD burning process alters the chemical compound in a segment on the plastic disc of the CD, rendering the “burned” segment unwritable once it was written but it could be read many times.

At the enterprise level, I got to know about WORM while working with tape drives and tape libraries in the mid-90s. The objective of WORM is to save and archive the data and files in a non-rewritable format for compliance reasons. And it was the data compliance and data protection parts that got me interested into data management. WORM is a big deal in many heavily regulated industries such as finance and banking, insurance, oil and gas, transportation and more.

Obviously things have changed. WORM, while very much alive in the ageless tape industry, has another up-and-coming medium in Object Storage. The new generation of data infrastructure and data management specialists are starting to take notice.

Worm Storage – Image from Hubstor (https://www.hubstor.net/blog/write-read-many-worm-compliant-storage/)

I take this opportunity to take MinIO object storage for a spin in creating WORM buckets which can be easily architected as data compliance repositories with many applications across regulated industries. Here are some relevant steps.

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Commvault coming all together

[Disclosure: I was invited by Commvault as a Media person and Social Ambassador to their Commvault GO 2019 Conference and also a Tech Field Day eXtra delegate from Oct 13-17, 2019 in the Denver CO, USA. My expenses, travel, accommodation and conference fees were covered by Commvault, the organizer and I was not obligated to blog or promote their technologies presented at this event. The content of this blog is of my own opinions and views]

This trip to the Commvault GO conference was pretty much a mission to find answers to their Hedvig acquisition just a month ago. It was an unprecedented move for Commvault and I, as an industry observer and pundit, took the news positively. I wrote in my blog about Commvault’s big bet and I liked their boldness in their approach.

But the news did not bode well back here in Malaysia. The local technology news portal, Data Storage Asean picked up the news in a rather unconvinced way. 2 long time Commvault partners I spoke to were obviously unhappy because the acquisition made little sense to them on the back of closing of the Commvault Malaysia office just weeks before this with more unsettling rumours of the Commvault team in Asia Pacific. The broken trust and the fear of what the future held for the Commvault customers in Malaysia and in the region were riding along with me on this trip.

But I have seen the beginning of the Commvault transformation from the Commvault GO conferences I have attended since 2017. This is my 3rd Commvault GO and I ended Day 1 with good vibes.

Here were some of my highlights in the first day. Continue reading