Exclusive: LucidLink enables collaboration directly on object storage – News

LucidLink Corp., provider of a cloud network-attached storage system based on object storage technology, today is introducing LucidLink Connect, a new capability that makes object storage an active workspace where teams can collaborate without migrating or duplicating data.

The San Francisco-based company said the feature, now generally available, extends its file streaming platform by enabling enterprises to mount Amazon Web Services Inc. S3-compatible object storage as part of a working file system. The approach aims to solve a longstanding challenge for organizations that store massive amounts of data in cloud object storage but struggle to use it efficiently in day-to-day workflows.

LucidLink’s platform streams files from object storage so they appear to be local. Users mount cloud storage as a drive on their computer, allowing applications to access content directly without requiring synchronization or downloads. The technology is designed to eliminate one of the biggest operational challenges associated with large data sets: constantly moving files between storage systems and users.

“It saves all of the pain and the additional costs of uploading, downloading and moving data around,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Peter Thompson (pictured). “We handle the collaborative aspects and contention so it’s just like users are in the office on a LAN going to a file server.”

Until now, companies typically had to copy or ingest data into a LucidLink workspace before they could use it in collaborative workflows. LucidLink Connect enables them to work directly with existing object storage data without the migration step.

“Customers told us they got 10 petabytes or 100 petabytes sitting in buckets that they want to activate into a current project,” Thompson said. “They’d rather not have to go find it, migrate it and move it.”

Instant access

The new capability allows organizations to instantly activate assets stored in native S3 into a LucidLink working file space. Under the hood, the system reads the metadata associated with objects in storage and streams only the portions of files required at any given moment.

“We do byte-range streaming from the objects on an as-needed basis,” Thompson said. “But we’re abstracting it so that it looks like it’s part of your drive on your local computer.”

LucidLink developed its own caching and prefetching technologies to minimize the impact on performance.“We do multiple parallel TCP streams and inline compression when possible,” he said. The system runs on hyperscale cloud infrastructure and supports any S3-compatible storage platform, including on-premises object storage systems.

The company is certified in accordance with SOC 2 Type II and the Motion Pictures Association’s TPN Blue Shield standards, and complies with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation. Connect preserves those security and governance standards while activating object storage for global team access.

The technology is widely used in media and entertainment workflows that require teams to collaborate on very large files, such as video content. But Thompson said the same architecture is increasingly being adopted in other industries where distributed teams work with large unstructured data sets where “hundreds of people are looking at the same data sets at the same time.” He noted that streaming file access can significantly reduce storage duplication and data transfer costs. LucidLink doesn’t charge egress fees.

The company has raised $155 million in financing, according to Tracxn Technologies Ltd.’s database. It manages more than 90 petabytes globally for more than 100,000 users. LucidLink was awarded an Emmy last year in the  Engineering, Science & Technology category by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Image: LucidLink