Spectra Logic T950 Library and Crossroads StrongBox LTFS

Spectra Logic Corp., and Crossroads Systems, Inc. announced a partnership to offer a solution providing an 81% reduction in high-performance video storage costs.
 
Because storage alone can consume up to 50% of the cost of an IP-based video surveillance project, alternatives are required to solve the dilemma of balancing storage costs with the need for more capacity.

Unmatched in the video surveillance community, the joint solution decreases costs by combining Crossroads’ StrongBox NAS solution with the Spectra Logic T950 tape library.
 
StrongBox is a NAS archive solution that leverages the LTFS as its volume storage medium. It serves as an online all-the-time, non-proprietary and portable data vault for long-term video data storage, while T950 tape library provides cost-effective volume storage. The combined solution incorporates disk for fast file storage and retrieval, and physical tape for cost-effective, reliable and long-term storage.
 
Cost Comparison
The advantageous aspect of a digital tape-based approach is the cost-savings associated with a move from an all disk-based environment to a NAS storage solution based on LTFS technology. For example, the savings in TCO for storing 1PB of video files (2 copies) over a 10-year period utilizing StrongBox LTFS NAS and T950 is nearly $6.5 million and an 81% reduction, as illustrated here:
 
StrongBox and T950
Acquisition Costs (Hardware, Media and Software): $832,102
Support (Hardware and Software): $653,909
Energy: $9,784
Total: $1,495,795

SAN Disk
Acquisition Costs (Hardware, Media and Software): $5,749,645
Support (Hardware and Software): $1,829,829
Energy: $234,760
Total: $7,814,234
 
The new solution offers video surveillance professionals:

• Cost-Savings: To ensure minimal TCO, the T950 tape library offers a growth path to meet short and long-term capacity requirements. As a less expensive alternative, LTO tape provides the principal storage medium within the T950 library.
• Scalability: The solution grows to fit an organisation’s needs with scalable augmentations for both disk and tape layers. To accommodate future expansion, a single StrongBox can hold up to 5 billion files, and the T950 scales up to ten thousand LTO slots in a single library system.
• Accessibility: It functions as standard NAS, giving file access to multiple simultaneous users, anywhere in the world. File access on a LTO library is similar to hard disk, CD/DVD disc or USB media in that there is drag and drop capability.
• Vendor Neutral through LTFS: StrongBox never modifies data. Instead, LTFS and LTO media ensure that files are universally accessible. LTFS technology refers to the open-nature, self-describing format of LTO-5 tape media. Because of the open standard of LTFS, data written to StrongBox can be read by any LTFS-enabled drive.
• Reliability and Security: Data protection is self-contained within StrongBox through flexible user-generated policies such as multi-copy, WAN accelerated replication and monitoring. The built-in System Monitor proactively assesses the health of the disks, tape cartridges, drives and libraries to provide a view of the system’s health, alerting users to potential issues before they occur. File hashing validates data and provides tamper proof evidence by comparing file hashes during the read operation. Active directory authentication for shares, role-based access, and secure access to the Web ensures data integrity and peace of mind that the data is transferred, stored securely and recoverable in time of need. For added security, the solution offers a free encryption key management option to protect content.

StrongBox, combined with Spectra Logic’s library, provides customers with a new file-based solution that can scale from terabytes to petabytes to support long-term data retention requirements. It connects to the network via GbE or 10GbE and plugs into the T950 via a SAN (4Gb or 8Gb FC). Through the use of StrongBox data management policies, video data is seamlessly served back to the application while simultaneously retrieving archived data from tape, thus providing the application or client performing data read rates.
 
"The demand for storage capacity to retain video surveillance images is growing at an unprecedented rate driven in part by increasing high-resolution digital cameras and longer data retention polices," said Nathan Thompson, CEO of Spectra Logic. "We are delighted to team with Crossroads Systems to provide customers with storage solutions that enable them to preserve surveillance video while meeting their long-term retention and accessibility requirements."
 
"We are pleased to announce our partnership with Spectra Logic, a company that boasts more than 30 years of data storage innovation," said Rob Sims, president and CEO of Crossroads Systems. "Partnerships with companies such as Spectra Logic underscore the unique capabilities that StrongBox brings to the video surveillance community. StrongBox serves as an ideal companion for existing archive solutions, as it brings unprecedented cost savings and data portability through the use of LTFS."