Clearpace With Cloud-Based Archive Service for Structured Data

Clearpace Software Ltd, a data archive store specialist, is launching a cloud-based archive service for structured data – RainStor.

RainStor allows users to instantly retire legacy applications and archive structured data to the cloud while keeping data secure and instantly accessible. Using Rainstor, organisations can eliminate the layers of cost associated with managing legacy applications: no more software licenses, servers, storage or data centre costs, and the expensive resources needed to keep legacy applications running can be redeployed.

RainStor compresses data by 40x before transferring encrypted data files to private archives in the cloud using the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), providing rapid load times. RainStor supports unlimited full SQL access to the archived data files using the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) through industry standard reporting tools and interfaces. The private archives are immutable and protected at all times using AES 256-bit encryption and SSL protocols ensuring archived data is always secure and immediately available.

"Legacy applications distract IT resources from mission critical applications, yet increased regulation and business requirements dictate that historic data must be preserved and accessible," says John Bantleman, CEO of Clearpace. "RainStor’s fully query-enabled, cloud-based data archive service requires no upfront investment allowing users to adopt a pay-as-you-use storage model based on the volume of data that is sent to the cloud.’ "The current economic imperative is to get cost out of the data centre and do more with less. We believe that the RainStor service delivers a new dimension to the cloud computing market by providing instant application retirement as a fully managed service," added Bantleman.

In April, Clearpace launched the first archive store for structured data to run as a virtual appliance. The NParchive virtual appliance has been designed to run on virtualization platforms from VMware, Microsoft and Xen.

RainStor’s capabilities are wrapped into an all-inclusive fee of $1 per gigabyte per month based on how much data is sent to the cloud. Rainstor is offering a free 90 day trial to users of the service.