VAST Data Adds Blocks to Unified Storage Platform

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VAST Data Adds Blocks to Unified Storage Platform
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VAST Data today announced the addition of block storage to its data platform, completing what the company said is its vision for the VAST DataStore as a universal storage platform that now encompasses files, objects and blocks.

VAST also added the VAST Event Broker, an Apache Kafka-compatible event streaming service for real-time data ingestion and processing and enables native querying of event topics via VAST DataBase APIs. Together, the capabilities integrate event streaming with structured analytics, the company said.

“These new advancements make the VAST Data Platform the only exascale solution on the market capable of linearly scaling parallel data access performance for every type of data – file, object, block, table, and streaming data – for all data workloads,” VAST said in its announcement. “By having all data accessible in a single system, organizations can now address all workloads within one unified architecture – without trade-offs in performance, scalability, or economics – allowing them to accelerate their journey to real-time insights and seamless AI adoption.”

By incorporating block storage, VAST has transformed data management for large-scale enterprises, consolidating siloed infrastructure into one platform with a suite of enterprise data services such as snapshots, replication, multi-tenancy, quality of service (QoS), encryption, and granular Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).

In tandem, the VAST Data Platform has unified transactional, analytical, AI and real-time streaming workloads by adding the VAST Event Broker – enabling real-time analytics, AI/ML pipelines, and event-driven workflows with simplified management, improved observability tools, expanded SQL query capabilitiesn and superior resilience.

The added capabilities is intended to enhance the VAST Data Platform’s ability to power virtualized and containerized workloads, and manage transactional, analytics and real-time data management:

  • The VAST Data Platform now supports environments such as VMware, Hyper-V, and other hypervisors. Features such as multi-tenancy and QoS allow IT teams to isolate workloads and simplify resource management across hundreds or thousands of VMs.
  • For organizations leveraging Kubernetes, Openshift or other container orchestration platforms, the addition of block storage enables persistent storage for containerized workloads. From transactional databases in containers to stateful microservices, the platform supports DevOps workflows, test environments and production-grade applications.
  • In modern enterprise environments, virtualized and containerized workloads often coexist, creating challenges in managing disparate storage systems. The VAST Data Platform is designed to eliminate this complexity by consolidating both workload types onto a single, unified storage architecture. This approach reduces operational overhead, simplifies provisioning, and performs across diverse application environments.
  • By delivering an integrated Event Broker, VAST lets organizations stream event logs to systems for processing, publishing and processing telemetry data in real time, giving event-driven updates to users, and streaming data to models for real-time training or inference. VAST unifies real-time streaming, AI/ML, and analytical workloads, eliminating the need for multiple siloed systems and driving efficiency, innovation, and cost savings.
  • Scalability, Observability, Resilience and Ease of Use of Open-Source Kafka: The VAST Event Broker offers power failure protection, independent scaling of storage and compute, built-in data reduction, seamless database integration for querying event streams, enhanced observability tools that provide actionable insights to optimize performance, and automation of complex workflows.

According to Gartner, “Next-generation enterprise storage infrastructure must satisfy platform-native technology requirements for… Multiprotocol storage platforms. These are designed to support multiple storage access protocols and address the growing needs of businesses. These platforms are versatile, allowing data to be stored and accessed using different protocols, such as Network File System (NFS), Server Message Block (SMB), block and object. This flexibility enables seamless integration with diverse IT environments and ensures that the storage system can meet the varied requirements of applications and users with different protocol preferences or compatibility needs.”[1]

[1] Gartner, Stop Buying Storage, Embrace Platforms Instead, Julia Palmer, Jeff Vogel, Chandra Mukhyala, January 15, 2025