News

Active Archive Alliance Announces New Active Archive Certified Architect Program

Certification Training to Take Place June 6 & 7 in Chicago

BOULDER, Colo.—May 15, 2012—The Active Archive Alliance announced today that it will be hosting its initial VAR certification program June 6-7, 2012 at the Chicago Marriott O'Hare in Chicago, Illinois. Active archives are ideal for companies that regularly manage high-volume digital assets or face exponential data growth as they provide a cost effective way to store large amounts of data with high reliability and accessibility.

The two-day program will provide training on how to best architect an active archive data center environment, and will enable participants to become Active Archive Certified Architects (AACA).

The certification provides VARs, vendors and end user participants with the proper tools and expertise needed to work with data center administrators to create and engineer active archive solutions. The program is also designed to help VARs and other participants expand their solution offerings for cloud and big data storage and management and to enable affordable 'Tape as NAS' storage offerings.

"This training and certification program is ideal for value-added resellers tasked with providing storage solutions that enable reliable, online and efficient access to unstructured file data," said Floyd Christofferson, Director of Storage Product Marketing at SGI and an Active Archive Alliance board member. "It will provide our reseller partners with knowledge about the latest data storage technologies that are enabling organizations to store and access vast volumes of data extremely efficiently and cost effectively."

Certified architects will be listed on the Alliance website as an active archive solution provider, and all active archive purchase inquiries received by the Alliance will be directed to them. Certified VARs will also receive an Active Archive Solution Provider logo for their corporate website and marketing collateral.

For more information or to register for the Active Archive Certified Architect training program, please visit our Registration Page.

About The Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data. Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners Dell, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies, SGI and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

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Media Contacts
IGNITE Consulting
Meredith Bagnulo, 303-513-7494
Linda Dellett, 303-439-9398
activearchive@igniteconsultinginc.com

NERSC Accelerates Data Access and Exceeds Reliability Standards with Tape-Based Active Archive

Active Archive Supports Massive Data Volumes and High Access Rates for Worldwide Research Community

BOULDER, Colo.—March 6, 2012—The Active Archive Alliance announced today that the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) has implemented a tape-based active archive to support its growing data storage needs. NERSC's active archive is a combined storage solution consisting of high performance storage system software, disk, and tape hardware, which provides a reliable way for users to access all of their data while ensuring highly reliable data storage.

NERSC is the primary scientific computing facility for the Office of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy and supports more than 400 different projects at any given time. It maintains a growing archive of more than 140 million files and its facility is connected to a network that facilitates the transfer of large scientific data sets between NERSC and other supercomputing centers and experimental facilities around the world. With data growth that typically hovers between 50 to 70 percent each year, the active archive takes in approximately 50 TB of data each day and data is retained an indefinite period of time.

"We provide some of the largest open computing and storage systems available to the global scientific community," said Jason Hick, storage system group lead at NERSC. "At any given moment, there are about 35 people logged into the archive system, including users from as far away as Europe or Asia, to researchers at various universities across the United States. Our active archive system allows us to support the high read rates that our users demand while retaining data efficiently, reliably and cost effectively."

The new active archive provides a way for NERSC's users to instantly access all of their data and also simplifies data storage and management for both researchers and storage administrators at a low cost.

Exceeding Reliability Standards
NERSC's tape-based active archive provides extremely reliable data storage. NERSC recently replaced its existing tape infrastructure with newer versions of tape in its active archive, and migrated 40,489 tape cartridges, which involved reading 22,065,763 meters of tape—the same distance as flying from San Francisco to Tokyo to Paris to Nova Scotia. The tapes ranged in age from two to 12 years.

During this massive migration process, NERSC tracked its tape data reliability within its active archive, and the findings flew in the face of conventional wisdom: 99.9991 percent of tapes were 100 percent readable, representing a 0.00009 percent error rate and exceeding the industry's high availability (HA) measure of "five 9's" reliability.

"Our recent migration further validated our belief that tape is reliable, and supported our long-standing practice of keeping a single copy of data," added Hicks. "This is particularly beneficial for NERSC given our significant storage capacity and reliability requirements."

"As NERSC's experience shows, active archives provide an extremely reliable
and efficient infrastructure that keeps large data volumes online and
accessible for users," said Peter Faulhaber, senior vice president at
Fujifilm and an Active Archive Alliance board member. "What's more, the
ongoing advancements in data tape technology will allow organizations such
as NERSC to support exponential data growth well into the future, in a
reliable and cost effective manner."

A full case study of this project is available online at: NERSC Exceeds Reliability Standards With Tape-Based Active Archive.

About The Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data.  Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners Dell, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies, SGI and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

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Media Contacts
IGNITE Consulting
Meredith Bagnulo, 303-513-7494
Linda Dellett, 303-439-9398
activearchive@igniteconsultinginc.com

Aberdeen Group Identifies Active Archiving as Key Strategy for Accessible, Online Archive Data

New Research Reveals Archiving Strategies of Best-in-Class Companies

BOULDER, Colo.—August 2, 2011—The Active Archive Alliance announced today the availability of a new research study that finds that Best-in-Class organizations are deploying active archives to keep ever growing data sets online, indexed and accessible without the costs and resources associated with primary storage.    

The study detailed in the July 2011 Aberdeen Group research report, "Archive Agility: Building Business Resilience through Active Archiving," shows that organizations today recognize the knowledge and business value of archived information and the importance of keeping it accessible. The report details how technology leaders are solving data management and accessibility concerns for Big Data, Cloud and Archive data by leveraging active archiving solutions. The study identified the following top four pressures that are driving organizations to archive data:

  • Too much historical information and data growth
  • Cost to keep data active and accessible
  • Takes too long for end users to gain access to historical data
  • Rising cost of managing litigation and compliance

"Our research shows that Best-in Class archiving organizations have active archives which provide their end users with fast and reliable access to historical data,” said Dick Csaplar, senior research analyst, Aberdeen Group. “The research also strongly supports the use of archiving standards that are supported by multiple companies to protect archives from being orphaned when a single company abandons one of their technologies. The Active Archive Alliance has emerged as the leading advocate of best-in-class active archiving standards, processes and products.  It supports active archive solutions that help ensure data integrity with data management features that include self healing, data integrity verification, and strong interoperability amongst participating active archive vendors.  The Alliance is a useful resource for organizations considering active archiving."

The Aberdeen report is based on a survey of a diverse group of 113 end user organizations. The report distinguished 'Best-in-Class' from 'Industry Average' and 'Laggard' organizations in archiving practices based on the amount of time to recover an archive file, the number of business interruptions in the last 12 months and lastly, the longest period of time of a business interruption in the last 12 months. 

The research brief revealed that the Best-in-Class companies were adept at managing archived data, as they reported their archives to be just 50 percent larger than their primary storage capacity. Furthermore, even though the size of their archives outranked other organizations in terms of overall bytes, their end-users could access archived files the fastest.   

According to the report, organizations enjoying Best-in-Class archiving performance shared several common characteristics, including:

  • 75 percent have deployed archive management software
  • 70 percent have IT trained in new archiving tools
  • 58 percent utilize open archive standards
  • 45 percent have a formal process to ensure redundant data is not archived

The Aberdeen Group report was made available in part by underwriters The Active Archive Alliance, Atempo, and Spectra Logic. The Active Archive Alliance is a non-profit storage industry association dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data. Its mission is to provide organizations with the best practices, tools and information they need to achieve simplified access to the online storage of their archived data. Download the report here.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions. For additional information, visit www.aberdeen.com.

About The Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data.  Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners Dell, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies, SGI and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.
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Media Contacts
IGNITE Consulting
Kathleen Sullivan, 303-439-9365
Linda Dellett, 303-439-9398
activearchive@igniteconsultinginc.com

FUJIFILM Joins Active Archive Alliance

Valhalla, N.Y., June 1, 2011 — FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc. today announced that it has joined the Active Archive Alliance as a voting member. The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry consortium formed to educate end user organizations on the evolving new technologies that enable reliable, online and efficient access to their archived data.

"Fujifilm is pleased to join the Active Archive Alliance as tape technology continues to provide cost-effective and reliable mass storage capable of addressing the incredible growth in tier 3 unstructured files," said Peter Faulhaber, senior vice president, FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc. "Our customers are looking for simplified solutions that make network storage economical and easy to manage. The Active Archive Alliance brings the entire solution to the table."

Active archiving eliminates the typical trade-off between keeping data visible in online disk arrays and moving the data to more cost-effective tape in a backup file. Today's innovative active archive applications provide the ability to see and access data on tape through a file system interface, making it easy and affordable to view and search archived data files, while ensuring data integrity and simplified data management. The industry trend toward active archiving is facilitated and accelerated by recent advancements in active archive applications as well as archive tape and disk storage technologies.

Recently, Fujifilm introduced its StorageIQ line of tape services powered by the ReadVerify® Appliance. StorageIQ is a low-cost, annual service that is easy to install and compatible with virtually any tape library environment. StorageIQ's ReadVerify Appliance (RVA) provides a proactive method for monitoring and validating the integrity and health of the overall backup environment through comprehensive reporting.

According to Dan Greenberg, director of new products and services, FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc., "StorageIQ complements the efforts of the Active Archive Alliance by adding a self-reporting, intelligent management layer to tape libraries. This makes the optimizing and verifying of tape archives automated and very easy to accomplish. Our customers find StorageIQ to be a key ally in their daily efforts to manage their systems."

With seamless heterogeneous integration and no software to install, the application-agnostic RVA plugs directly into the Storage Area Network (SAN) and immediately begins to monitor performance for one or multiple libraries in the data center. Maintenance updates are transparent to users so that the focus can be placed on cost reduction, performance improvements and maximizing utilization.
Data collection is done out-of-band of the backup or data application with no impact on the existing storage infrastructure.

Globally, Fujifilm's commitment to advancing data storage is clearly demonstrated through the company's development of high capacity and superior quality data storage tape. Fujifilm maintains the largest production share of LTO Ultrium tape cartridges in the midrange data storage market, and will continue to lead the development of large capacity data storage tape with its BaFe technology, the next generation of data storage tape.

About the Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data. Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners Compellent, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies, SGI and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor-neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high-density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost-effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

About Fujifilm
FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc. is the US-based manufacturing, marketing and sales operations of professional broadcast video and data tape recording media for FUJIFILM Corporation. The company provides broadcast and data center customers and industry partners with a wide range of unique data center accessories, value-added services and programs. Based on a history of thin-film engineering and magnetic particle science such as Fujifilm NANOCUBIC technology, Fujifilm creates breakthrough data storage products. In 2009, Fujifilm announced it had surpassed the 50 million milestone for the number of LTO Ultrium data cartridges manufactured since introduction, highlighting the company's leadership and success as a manufacturer of mid-range and enterprise tape media. For more information on Fujifilm Recording Media products, customers can call 800-488-3854 or go to www.fujifilmusa.com/tapestorage. To receive news and information direct from Fujifilm via RSS, subscribe free at www.fujifilmusa.com/rss.

FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, brings continuous innovation and leading-edge products to a broad spectrum of industries, including electronic imaging, digital printing equipment, medical systems, life sciences, graphic arts, flat panel display materials, and office products, based on a vast portfolio of digital, optical, fine chemical and thin film coating technologies. The company was among the top 16 companies around the world granted U.S. patents in 2010, and in the year ended March 31, 2011, had global revenues of $25.8 billion*. Fujifilm is committed to environmental stewardship and good corporate citizenship. For more information, please visit www.fujifilmholdings.com.

* At an exchange rate of 86 yen to the dollar.

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All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

Crossroads Systems Joins Active Archive Alliance

Austin, Texas – May 3, 2011 – Crossroads Systems, Inc. (symbol: CRDS) today announced it has joined the Active Archive Alliance as a contributing member.  The Active Archive Alliance is a non-profit storage industry association dedicated to market education on the evolving use of active archives for simplified, online access to all unstructured file data. 

The industry trend toward active archiving is being enabled and accelerated by recent advancements in active archive applications as well as archive tape and disk storage technologies. Today’s innovative active archive applications provide the ability to see and access data on tape through a file system interface, making it easy and affordable to view and search archived data files in large heterogeneous online active tape and disk storage pools.

Last month Crossroads announced plans to launch a new tape-based archive product that leverages the new Linear Tape File System (LTFS) technology. It’s designed to address the need for low cost and highly reliable long-term data preservation for both enterprise and SMB organizations.

Additionally, Crossroads offers ReadVerify Appliance (RVA), the only standalone appliance that proactively validates the integrity of tape backup systems. Greatly reducing tape replacement costs and guaranteeing that data is always recoverable, RVA provides a tool to monitor, track and report on the performance, utilization and health of tape devices and tape media.

By continually diagnosing operational backup errors, organizations experience impressive performance improvements and significant cost savings. Crossroads also offers services that utilize RVA to provide a detailed assessment of tape storage systems.  Last week Crossroads announced RVA 4.0, which marks the availability of RVA software for VMware ESXi 4.1 virtual environments. By helping to maximize the use of both existing storage and server resources, RVA 4.0 improves tape system efficiency in virtual environments just as it does when used as an actual physical appliance.

“The Active Archive Alliance’s mission parallels Crossroads commitment to providing intelligent active archive technology that maximizes the use of tape systems,” said Rob Sims, president and CEO of Crossroads Systems. “We’re pleased to join the Active Archive Alliance, as our technologies offer innovative, never-before available methods to proactively monitor and efficiently store long-term data.”

About the Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data.  Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners, Compellent, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies, SGI and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. For more information, visit www.activearchive.com.

About Crossroads Systems
Crossroads Systems, Inc. (OTC.PK: CRDS) is a global provider of solutions and services that ensure stored data is proactively protected and reliably recovered. Crossroads offers organizations powerful data protection, proactive data security, intelligent storage connectivity, unmatched performance, and significant cost savings. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Crossroads holds more than 100 patents granted and pending and has been honored with numerous industry awards for innovation in data protection and storage. Visit www.crossroads.com.

Active Archive Alliance to Promote Simplified, Affordable Online File Archive Access to European Organisations

Alliance to Offer Best Practices, Compatibility and Education for Active Archive Solution; Adds New Partners
BOULDER, Colo. & SNW Europe, Frankfurt—October 26, 2010—The Active Archive Alliance, whose goal is to bring data archives online to promote simplified access to vast volumes of data, today announced plans to expand its educational and awareness-building activities into the European market. Organisations increasingly store more data in archives and, as a result, the challenges of indexing, querying and retrieving that data quickly, simply and efficiently has intensified.  Active archive solutions resolve these issues by turning offline archives into visible, accessible extensions of online file and storage systems.  Having simple, persistent access to archived data allows organisations to mine this information and gain valuable insight based on all the institutional knowledge available. 

The mission of the Active Archive Alliance is to provide organisations with the best practices, tools and information they need to achieve simplified access to the online storage of their archived data.  Membership is open to providers of file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. The Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organisation founded by technology partners Compellent Technologies, FileTek, QStar Technologiesand Spectra Logic Corporation.  Since its launch in April 2010, the Alliance has also added new partners SGI, Atempo and GRAU Data, which is headquartered in Germany.

“The trend towards active archives is being driven by significant data growth, compliance requirements and data center consolidation, and is being enabled by technological advancements and changes in IT service delivery models through adoption of cloud computing in particular. The Active Archive Alliance will help raise awareness amongst European end-users of the need for standardisation, best practices, and appropriate infrastructure management in order to take advantage of this paradigm change in IT consumption and delivery.  Instead of having vast offline archives delivering little value to the business, online archives are now a viable option for any organisation looking to derive value from bringing data online,” said Roy Illsley, principal analyst at Ovum.

Developments in active archive applications and in efficient tape and disk technologies now enable organisations to cost-effectively maintain all file data in online storage for fast, easy search and retrieval.  Today’s active archive applications provide the ability to see and access data on tape or disk through a file system interface.  The applications make it easy to view and search directories of existing data files, and they maintain the metadata map that links the name of a file to its storage location.  These capabilities enable organizations to better manage their large pools of stored data by allowing them to deploy the most efficient mix of tape and disk storage for their active archive solutions.

SNW-Europe attendees can hear Molly Rector, vice president, marketing and product management at Spectra Logic discussing active archives in a SNIA Presentation - Active Archive: Data Protection for the Modern Data Center, taking place today at 4:05pm CET in Spektrum 2 Auditorium.

Please visit www.activearchive.com for more information about the Active Archive Alliance and to become a member.

Tweet this: Active Archive Alliance promotes online access to all archived data #storage

About The Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data.  Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners, Compellent Technologies, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

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Media Contacts:
IGNITE Consulting
Kathleen Sullivan, 303-439-9365
Linda Dellett, 303-439-9398
activearchive@igniteconsultinginc.com

AxiCom Public Relations
Nick Sutton, +44 208 392 4086
nick.sutton@axicom.com

Active Archive Alliance to Demonstrate Complete Solution in the SNW Fall 2010 Hands-on-Lab

Compellent, QStar and Spectra Logic to Display Automated Active Archiving to Disk and Tape

BOULDER, Colo.—October 11, 2010—The Active Archive Alliance announced today that it will demonstrate a complete active archive solution at Storage Networking World’s Hands-on Lab in Dallas, Texas this week. The Active Archive Alliance is a non-profit storage industry association dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data. 

The 30-minute lab and lecture modules provide participants hands-on experience demonstrating the simple, integrated and affordable new methods available to migrate data from primary storage to tape, while keeping information online and accessible for long-term retention and compliance demands.  This lab demonstration will show how end users can use new technologies to eliminate the need for cumbersome tape backups, and keep more data online by leveraging tape solutions as a long-term active archive.

The Alliance’s active archive lab configuration consists of a storage management server using Spectra Logic’s T120 tape library with LTO-5 drives and media, and nTier500 archive and backup application server; Compellent Storage Center Enterprise SAN; and QStar’s Network Migrator Active Archive software.  SNW attendees can participate in the active archive Hands-on-Lab at the following times:

  • Monday, October 11, from 10:15 – 12:00 noon and 3:15 – 5:15 p.m.
  • Tuesday, October 12, from 8:15 – 10:15 a.m. and 2:00 – 3:45 p.m.
  • Wednesday, October 13, from 10:30 – 12:30 p.m. and 4:00 – 5:45 p.m.

Benefits of active archives include:

  • Automatic archiving of data from disk to tape, resulting in lower data storage costs and increased data protection
  • Compliance with corporate and regulatory data retention standards and eDiscovery tactics
  • Increased ease of managing large data sets over extended time periods

The active archive solution featured at SNW highlights a tiered storage environment with easy to use interfaces for policy creation and configuration.  These interfaces enable easy management of online access to all data within an active archive.

Active Archive Alliance - Participating members
“Many end users struggle with how to optimize their disk and tape deployments,” said Bruce Kornfeld, vice president of business development and alliances, Compellent. “The active archive is demonstrating how IT departments can use new technologies to build efficient, easy-to-use archives where their production data can easily be recovered from disk while all their data stays available online in their tape archiving system.”  Compellent is exhibiting at SNW booth #215.

“Participants will be able to use QStar Network Migrator to provide a comprehensive range of policies to govern data migration and management,” said Dave Thomson, vice president of worldwide sales, QStar. “In the lab, data will automatically be moved or copied to the server and participants can quickly see how the system is managed, and practice accessing and retrieving data.”

“The SNW Hands-on Lab is a great opportunity to ‘test drive’ a complete active archive solution, and to see how today’s tape library solutions can provide the most efficient online file system storage,” said Molly Rector, vice president of marketing and product management, Spectra Logic, and Active Archive Alliance board chair. “Spectra Logic’s modern, intelligent tape libraries provide active archiving storage that delivers power efficiency, high density, reliability, low cost, fast access times and easily integration with archive management applications – making it easy for organizations to achieve simplified access to all their archived data.”

The mission of the Active Archive Alliance is to provide organizations with the best practices, tools and information they need to achieve simplified access to the online storage of their archived data. Other members of the Alliance include FileTek, Inc., a founding partner, SGI, Atempo and GRAU Data. Please visit www.activearchive.com for more information about the Active Archive Alliance and to become a member.

About SNW’s Hands-on-Lab
A popular program offered at SNW, the Hands-On Lab provides attendees with one-on-one contact with participating vendors as end users are guided through a series of exercises organized around various technology themes. The Hands-On Lab gives users a chance to “test drive” the latest technologies in a controlled learning lab environment. The classes take place for two hours at regular intervals throughout the conference and are limited to 16-20 seats to give attendees a rich learning experience. Once registered for the conference, attendees will receive follow-up details on how to sign up for specific Hands-on-Lab sessions at SNW Fall. 

About The Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data.  Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners, Compellent Technologies, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

Media Contacts

IGNITE Consulting
Kathleen Sullivan, 303-439-9365
Linda Dellett, 303-439-9398
activearchive@igniteconsultinginc.com

Atempo Joins the Active Archive Allianc

Industry Association Dedicated to Education and Awareness of Active Archiving 

Palo Alto, CA—July 13, 2010—Atempo Inc, a leading provider of cross platform data protection and archiving solutions, today announced that it has joined the Active Archive Alliance, a non-profit storage industry association dedicated to market education on the evolving use of active archives for simplified, online access to all unstructured file data.

"With corporate data volumes continuously expanding, organizations of all sizes must re-think their digital workflow and storage strategy to ensure that business critical data is securely retained yet easily accessible, whether it be days or years down the road," said Richard Heitmann, VP of Marketing at Atempo. "For years, Atempo has worked with organizations worldwide and in numerous industries to optimize data management by making digital archiving an integral component of the business and content creation workflow. We are proud to align with the Active Archive Alliance to help educate and inform all data-intensive markets of the storage efficiency and cost-benefits of implementing an active archiving strategy."

Active archiving eliminates the typical trade-off between keeping data visible in online disk arrays and moving the data to more cost-effective tape in a backup file. Organizations are now able to use both tape and disk in a large heterogeneous storage pool behind a standard file system interface.  This enables online access to archive data, making it searchable and quickly accessible, while ensuring data integrity and simplified data management.

Organizations are archiving increasing amounts of data as they grapple with data growth, retention, compliance rules and the need to leverage the knowledge and information within their organization. As organizations archive more data, the challenge of accessing that data when needed has intensified.  Active archive solutions resolve this issue by turning offline archives into visible, accessible extensions of online storage systems— enabling fast, easy access to all archived data through a file system interface. 

The industry trend toward active archiving is being enabled and accelerated by recent advancements in active archive applications as well as archive tape and disk storage technologies. Today’s innovative active archive applications provide the ability to see and access data on tape through a file system interface, making it easy and affordable to view and search archived data files in large heterogeneous online active tape and disk storage pools.

Atempo Digital Archive is a file archiving solution that goes beyond preservation and hierarchal storage management (HSM), to actively participate in the day-to-day workflow of information in companies. Today, more organizations require data to be retained at different stages in its lifecycle. Raw data, edited files and final projects need to be stored, as any version may need to be leveraged for future projects. Atempo Digital Archive’s transparency to end-users and critical integration with asset management applications allow those individuals to easily archive at various steps in the content creation process and pull information into and out of the archives as needed. This enables users to transfer fixed-content media assets stored in these applications into a wide number of long-term storage devices by simply using the native application interface.
The mission of the Active Archive Alliance is to provide organizations with the best practices, tools and information they need to achieve simplified access to the online storage of their archived data.  Please visit www.activearchive.com for more information about the Active Archive Alliance and to become a member.

About the Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data. Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners, Compellent, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

About Atempo
Atempo enables organizations to preserve and protect digital information simply and effectively, across any infrastructure, on any platform, over long periods of time. Atempo’s comprehensive archiving solutions deliver policy-based and workflow-driven management of rich media files, e-mail and other high-value digital assets to maximize the efficiency and performance of storage systems and reduce long-term storage costs. Atempo’s fully-integrated software portfolio also includes backup and recovery of heterogeneous servers, workstations and laptops throughout the enterprise – from the data center to remote offices. Atempo serves thousands of customers around the world through a sales and support network of over 200 resellers and partners.

Learn more about Atempo at http://www.atempo.com

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Media Contacts

Active Archive Alliance
PR@ActiveArchive.com

IGNITE Consulting
Kathleen Sullivan, 303-439-9365
Linda Dellett, 303-439-9398
ActiveArchive@igniteconsultinginc.com

Atempo, Inc.
Turan Apakay
650.433.4155
turan.apakay@atempo.com

 


ACTIVE ARCHIVE ALLIANCE FORMED TO PROMOTE SIMPLIFIED, ONLINE ACCESS TO ALL ARCHIVED DATA

Alliance to Offer Best Practices, Ensured Compatibility and Education for New Active Archive Solutions

BOULDER, Colo.—April 27, 2010—Leading technology vendors today announced the formation of the Active Archive Alliance, whose goal is to bring data archives online to promote simplified access to vast volumes of data. Organizations increasingly store more data in archives and, as a result, the challenges of indexing, querying and retrieving that data quickly, simply and efficiently has intensified. Active archive solutions resolve these issues by turning offline archives into visible, accessible extensions of online file and storage systems. Having simple, persistent access to archived data allows organizations to mine this information and gain valuable insight based on all the institutional knowledge available.

“The Active Archive Alliance supports the growing need organizations have for fast, easy, cost-efficient online access to all of their data. The Alliance is timely and highlights the important issue of archiving data, which is one of the largest and fastest growing storage segments,” said Mark Peters, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “The trend towards active archives is driven by such factors as unrelenting data growth, retention compliance, and the need for cost reduction and data center consolidation; its achievement is enabled by the growth in applications that directly connect file systems and automated tape archives.”

Developments in active archive applications and in efficient tape and disk technologies now enable organizations to cost-effectively maintain all data in online storage for fast, easy search and retrieval. Today’s active archive applications provide the ability to see and access data on tape or disk through a file system interface. The applications make it easy to view and search directories of existing data files, and they maintain the map that links the name of a file to its storage location. These capabilities enable organizations to better manage their large pools of stored data by allowing them to deploy the most efficient mix of tape and disk storage for their active archive solutions.

“Market trends support the adoption of active archives. Recent advancements in tape libraries and archival technologies should help active archiving become a prominent technology in expanding data centers,” said Addison Snell, CEO of InterSect360 Research. “The ability to run file system interfaces over storage pools that include high-throughput, high-density tape libraries will allow more organizations to economically leverage the data in their archives, so they can take full advantage of their institutional knowledge.”

The mission of the Active Archive Alliance is to provide organizations with the best practices, tools and information they need to achieve simplified access to the online storage of their archived data. Membership is open to providers of file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users.

“Active archiving is becoming a fast-growing trend as organizations seek ways to locate and retrieve critical archived information when needed,” said Molly Rector, vice president of marketing and product management for Spectra Logic. “Active archive solutions increase the efficiency of the data center by providing businesses the benefit of simple, online access to all their institutional knowledge. And, with new applications that enable users to access tape archives through a file system interface, organizations have more flexibility in designing efficient and affordable active archive solutions using the right mix of tape and disk media.”

“QStar is excited to be a founding member of the Active Archive Alliance,” said Dave Thomson, senior vice president of sales, QStar Technologies. “Our company has exclusively offered solutions in the archive world for more than 23 years and completely endorses the messages involved in active archiving, namely combining disk and tape technologies to maximize the benefits of each. An active archive offers optimized performance and data security for an organization’s most valuable resource: its data.”

“Next generation online archives are changing the implementation model and economics of information lifecycle management and data accessibility. In addition to our longtime focus on scalability, performance and automation, FileTek delivers rich capabilities for self-healing data assurance and policy-driven governance as foundational tenets of our StorHouse storage virtualization and data management platform,” remarked Gary Szukalski, president of FileTek, Inc. “By leveraging the cost advantages of tape with the direct and random access advantages historically associated only with disk, StorHouse gives organizations easy, economical and managed access to all data – both backup and archive – thereby fulfilling both compliance and day-to-day business requirements from a single, automated system.”

“We are joining the Active Archive Alliance because of its dedication to promote contemporary storage solutions that are easy to use, scalable and cost effective,” said Bruce Kornfeld, vice president of marketing, Compellent Technologies. “Today’s mix of file system software, disk and tape deliver solutions that handle large pools of data efficiently and simply within an active archive environment – and address a previously unmet need in the market.”

The Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization. Founding technology partners include Compellent Technologies, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies and Spectra Logic Corporation.

  • Compellent Technologies provides flexible, cost-effective disk-based solutions that meet the requirements for active archive storage, including high density SAS and SATA drives, performance-optimized RAID for fast throughput, and the ability to easily scale by adding disk drives to any tier of storage on the fly. Compellent’s Fluid Data Architecture automates the movement and management of data at a granular level, enabling organizations to constantly adapt to change, slash costs and secure information against downtime and disaster. This patented, built-in storage intelligence delivers significant efficiency, scalability and flexibility. With an all-channel sales network in 35 countries, Compellent is one of the fastest growing enterprise storage companies in the world.
  • FileTek, Inc. provides an intelligent storage virtualization and data management platform that can archive, retrieve and back up massive amounts of relational and file-based information, and supports high-performance disk, commodity SATA disk and highly efficient tape in automated libraries.
  • QStar Technologies is a leading provider of enterprise class archive, data management and disaster prevention software and solutions. QStar’s solutions employ the 3-2-1 Archiving and Data Protection Best Practice, endorsed by leading storage analysts, which creates a solid foundation for a robust archive architecture without demanding proprietary hardware or infrastructure. Established in 1987, the world's leading companies rely on QStar for the secure, cost effective and reliable storage protection of their valuable digital assets.
  • Spectra Logic provides high-density, feature rich tape and disk storage that supports efficient, high-performance active archives. For years Spectra Logic has led the industry in delivering active archiving capabilities to large broadcast organizations and national high-performance computing (HPC) labs, which use proprietary applications for online access to data archived on Spectra tape libraries. With the emergence of open systems applications that directly connect file systems and automated tape libraries, the benefits of tape-based active archives are available to all organizations, no matter their size.

Please visit www.activearchive.com for more information about the Active Archive Alliance and to become a member.

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About The Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data. Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners, Compellent Technologies, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

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Media Contacts

Active Archive Alliance
Contact

IGNITE Consulting
Kathleen Sullivan, 303-439-9365
Linda Dellett, 303-439-9398
activearchive@igniteconsultinginc.com


NIH National Center for Biotechnology Information Deploys StorHouse from FileTek for Critical Bioinformatic Application

StorHouse Entrusted with Vital Next-Generation Genomic Sequencing Data      

 

Rockville, MD, March 18, 2010 – FileTek, Inc., a leading global provider of large-scale data management and information governance solutions, today announced that the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research, recently purchased and deployed multiple FileTek StorHouse® storage virtualization and data management systems as an active archive and backup solution for storing, accessing, and protecting all critical NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) data. SRA data is next-generation genomic sequencing information produced at numerous bioinformatic research facilities and centers throughout the United States. The information is then written to StorHouse and made available to a prestigious, global biomedical research community.

Currently, NCBI/NIH has deployed two production StorHouse systems and two backup/disaster recovery StorHouse systems at geographically dispersed locations in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The long-range, two-year plan is to grow these installations to dozens of StorHouse instances in multiple locations to accommodate the anticipated 12-petabyte archive size. In addition, StorHouse is responsible for storing and backing up vital SRA project information created at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.

FileTek wishes to acknowledge Cambridge Computer of Waltham, MA, for its role in helping the NIH Medical Library identify StorHouse as the best fit for the NCBI's technical requirements.  "The NCBI storage repository is the most exciting storage project in the bioinformatics world today," commented Jacob Farmer, CTO of Cambridge Computer.  "This system will be storing and protecting 12 petabytes of genomic sequencing data gathered from research sites across the country.  FileTek's StorHouse has several unique features that made it stand out as the optimal choice for managing what is undoubtedly the most important cache of life sciences data in the world today."

"FileTek is pleased that NCBI/NIH chose StorHouse for its groundbreaking SRA application," remarked Chuck Whinney, the FileTek General Manager for StorHouse. "When faced with the ultimate challenge of designing the SRA application, NCBI/NIH realized early on that StorHouse met all system requirements, including ensuring data integrity, facilitating data access, and scaling to petabytes and beyond to support future growth. Furthermore, because the StorHouse systems at NCBI/NIH are media/hardware agnostic and use a blend of cost-effective storage options, they also provide lower storage and data management costs. As the SRA initiative progresses, FileTek looks forward to pursuing more projects at NIH and at other biomedical research centers around the world."

About StorHouse
StorHouse is an intelligent, hardware agnostic, storage virtualization and data management platform for archiving, retrieving, and backing up large volumes of relational and file-based information. The system supports an automatically managed pool of traditional and alternative storage devices, including tape, disk, solid state devices, and most other generally available storage technologies. Enterprises deploy StorHouse as an integral component of an overall enterprise storage infrastructure for active archive applications, database extension systems, information lifecycle management initiatives, digital preservation programs, and native file format backups of terabytes to petabytes of data residing on operational systems.

StorHouse has many unique features that support biomedical research applications such as the SRA program at NCBI/NIH. These features include:

  • All-in-one platform functionality that provides both archive and backup capabilities
  • An industry-standard relational file system layer that archives, retrieves, and/or backs up any format of unstructured data in native file format with no need for application modifications
  • Scalability to trillions of files and multiple petabytes of managed data with no performance degradation
  • A native file format backup approach that eliminates the need for traditional restore processing
  • Virtualized storage that cost-effectively uses traditional and alternative storage media to lower the total cost of data ownership and provide a measurable, cost-correct ROI
  • Automated system, storage, and data management, including storage allocation and control as well as data migration, replication, backup, recovery, and retention
  • Automatic content validation and repair processes to ensure data integrity and archive reliability
  • Easy migration to newer and more advanced technology as it becomes available with no performance degradation

About FileTek
FileTek, Inc. is a premier provider of large-scale data management and information governance solutions, enabling organizations, worldwide and across multiple industry segments, to efficiently manage, rapidly access, and effectively govern their ever-growing volume of enterprise data. Since 1984, FileTek has provided comprehensive, award-winning solutions to companies, prestigious educational institutions, scientific and government agencies worldwide. From our patented and innovative StorHouse high-volume data management solutions to our Trusted Edge® information classification and asset management software, FileTek maintains a steady focus: enhancing and automating information lifecycle management and data preservation processes for all categories and volumes of data.

FileTek is headquartered at 9400 Key West Avenue, Rockville, MD 20850. Telephone: 301-251-0600. Fax: 301-251-1990. The FileTek international headquarters, FileTek Ltd, is located at One Northumberland Ave., London WC2N 5BW. Telephone: +44 (0) 207 872 5583. Fax: +44 (0) 207 753 2829. The company also has offices across North America. To learn more about FileTek, visit: http://www.filetek.com.

 

About The National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research. Helping to lead the way toward important medical discoveries that improve people's health and save lives, NIH scientists investigate ways to prevent disease as well as the causes, treatments, and even cures for common and rare diseases. Composed of 27 Institutes and Centers, the NIH provides leadership and financial support to researchers in every state and throughout the world. For over a century, the National Institutes of Health has played an important role in improving the health of the nation. The NIH traces its roots to 1887 with the creation of the Laboratory of Hygiene at the Marine Hospital in Staten Island, NY. The NIH is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. With the headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, the NIH has more than 18,000 employees on the main campus and at satellite sites across the country.

With the support of the American people, the NIH annually invests over $28 billion in medical research. More than 83% of the NIH's funding is awarded through almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state and around the world. About 10% of the NIH's budget supports projects conducted by nearly 6,000 scientists in its own laboratories, most of which are on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.

About Cambridge Computer
Cambridge Computer provides professional services, sales, and education in the fields of storage networking, data protection, and digital preservation.  Founded in 1991, Cambridge Computer is best known in the data storage industry for authoring best practices for enterprise backup and archiving, and for its role in defining use cases for next generation storage networking technologies.  Cambridge Computer’s clients span across all industries and range in size from small business to the Fortune 50.  FileTek has partnered with Cambridge Computer to explore new markets, particularly in life sciences and higher education.