Group Logic Ships ArchiveConnect

Group Logic, provider of Mac/Windows connectivity solutions, announced the availability of its latest product, ArchiveConnect.

This new product enables organizations with Mac desktops to take full advantage of the benefits of file archiving and hierarchical storage management (HSM) solutions in the enterprise. ArchiveConnect provides end-users with an easy and intuitive way to identify and access archived files while eliminating inadvertent recalls of archived files, an issue that has impeded the adoption of file archiving. ArchiveConnect enhances the Mac Finder with archive management functions and controls the Finder’s advanced user experience features, including file previews, Quick Look and Cover Flow, so that they do not unintentionally trigger mass recalls of archived files.

“Gartner expects that the file archiving and HSM markets will continue to grow quickly with a CAGR of 19.2% through 2012,” said Carolyn DiCenzo, vice president of research at Gartner, Inc. “Note also that the recent market share gains of the Macintosh have made support for mixed Windows/Mac environments a deal breaker in many organizations. In the last year, I have seen the requirement for support of the Mac appear in an increasing number of bids, a trend that I expect will continue.”

File archiving solutions can offer tremendous business benefits by moving infrequently used files to low cost storage. Doing so can help organizations reduce their storage hardware costs by up to 80%. This type of offloading has additional benefits as these files are removed from the nightly and weekly back-up processes, saving both administrative time and back-up equipment costs. Unfortunately, some of the queries generated by the Mac’s advanced user experience features are misinterpreted by archiving solutions as requests to restore archived files thereby generating mass recalls of those files. These file recalls can completely negate the benefits typically provided by a file archiving solution.

ArchiveConnect is a lightweight plugin to Mac OS X clients that enhances the behavior of the Finder so that users can easily identify and access archived files without triggering unnecessary file recalls. ArchiveConnect controls the Mac Finder’s advanced user features so that they are only applied to online files, thereby ensuring that offline or archived files are not inadvertently recalled. ArchiveConnect also allows users to view small ‘pointer’ or ‘stub’ files that point to archived files. This allows users to go to one file server to see a directory of both online and offline files. ArchiveConnect allows users to either double-click on archived files to restore them or, if required by an administrator, right-click or control-click on the file to explicitly request that the file is brought online. This type of easy and intuitive user access ensures productivity while minimizing the burden on IT help desk and Enterprise Archiving resources.

“Customers are experiencing explosive growth in their need for storage. This is putting tremendous pressure on budgets, pressure that file archiving software can alleviate,” said T. Reid Lewis, Group Logic CEO. “ArchiveConnect allows organizations with Macs to take advantage of this and gain major cost savings despite the challenges in the market.”

ArchiveConnect and ExtremeZ-IP, Better Together
Both ArchiveConnect and ExtremeZ-IP can be purchased separately; however together they provide a powerful solution for Macs operating within a Windows Server environment. ArchiveConnect and ExtremeZ-IP provide Mac users a terrific experience with single-sign-on and blazingly fast file access, without any worry of disrupting a company’s file archiving system. ExtremeZ-IP also compliments ArchiveConnect by color coding all archived files so that end-users can easily differentiate between online and archived files.