Every organization racing to adopt AI runs into the same wall: the unstructured data that fuels AI and analytics is scattered across file systems, object stores, edge sites, data centers, and multiple clouds. You know the data exists. Finding it is another story.
Traditional search tools were never built for this. They rely on crawlers, ETL pipelines, and separate databases that go stale almost as soon as they're built. The result is discovery that's slow, complex, error-prone, and expensive and as data volumes grow, those inefficiencies compound, driving up costs, slowing decisions, and eroding the value of enterprise data.
The Problem with Searching Unstructured Data Today
If you've ever tried to answer a simple question like “where is all the data owned by this person?” across a petabyte-scale environment, the pain points are familiar:
Slow namespace walks that crawl through massive file environments for hours or days.
Stale indexes produced by crawlers and ETL pipelines that can't keep up with change.
Complex infrastructure deployed across separate databases, VMs, and search clusters just to make data findable.
Manual tagging that limits discovery accuracy and never scales.
Poor support for AI/ML workflows and autonomous agents that need real-time data access.
Fragmented search across core, cloud, and edge, with no single view of what you have.
NeuralSearch: Search Built Into the Storage Itself
Qumulo NeuralSearch takes a fundamentally different approach: instead of bolting search onto storage, it builds search into the storage where the truth already exists. NeuralSearch transforms the file system into a live query engine using metadata the platform already tracks and a near-unlimited amount of additional metadata that can be added, continuously materializing it in real time with native columnar indexes.
That means no crawlers, no indexing jobs, no manual tagging, and no separate search infrastructure to deploy and maintain. Just constant time search across hundreds of millions of files, with strict consistency and no stale results.
Four Ways to Ask, One Source of Truth
NeuralSearch lets everyone, technical or not, query data the way that suits them:
SQL metadata search. Query system and user-defined metadata instantly, using open formats like Parquet and Iceberg through tools such as Spark, Trino, and DuckDB.
Natural language search. Ask questions in plain English, “show me all customer contracts containing ‘renewal’ expiring this year,” and an LLM translates them into SQL automatically.
Semantic search. Vector embeddings let you search by meaning, similarity, and visual context rather than file names or tags. Think: “find desert chase scenes including a car.”
Temporal search. Ask “what changed since Monday?” to power compliance investigations, audits, and operational visibility.
Where It Pays Off
The impact shows up quickly across the workflows that matter most:
AI/ML data discovery. Locate and retrieve training datasets in seconds, without duplication or manual preparation.
Analytics modernization. Replace slow namespace walks with fast SQL-based metadata queries.
Compliance and investigations. Find relevant files instantly using metadata and temporal search.
Media and content discovery. Surface specific scenes, visual content, and creative assets through semantic search instead of manual tagging.
Agentic AI platforms. Give autonomous agents real time data discovery through MCP ready interfaces and standard protocols.
Why Storage-Native Matters
Because NeuralSearch is integrated with Qumulo's Cloud Data Fabric, organizations get a single intelligent view of data across every environment core, cloud, and edge with real-time metadata propagation globally and no replication or separate indexing required. Retrieval happens through the standard NFS and S3 workflows teams already use.
The result: faster discovery, lower operational cost, and dramatically simpler access to unstructured data. Search billions of files the same way you search the internet — and turn insight into action with confidence.
Getting Started
NeuralSearch is available as a 25% uplift on CNQ or ANQ $/TB pricing and is deployed on a separate VM; for on-premises licensing, contact Qumulo sales. To learn more, click here.
Billions of files. One intelligent platform. Unlimited possibilities.