Alliance Storage Technologies Brings Enhanced NAS Archiving Solution: Elite

Alliance Storage Technologies, Inc. has announced advancements to the NAS Archive Appliance product line resulting in performance improvements.

The new Archive Appliance, branded the Elite, is a solution for managing and archiving data securely and safely for extended periods (greater than 50 years) in an unaltered format that can be retrieved and randomly accessed by users.

The solution consists of the Storage Management System (the front-end server system with RAID that acts as a performance cache for the archive) and archiving libraries based on regulatory compliant WORM UDO technology. The two are integrated by an archive management software application that provides the capabilities for efficiently and effectively archiving data.

The company reports that the majority of the technology refresh has been made to the Storage Management System (SMS).

"The entire SMS has undergone an impressive upgrade with active data files ingested and written to UDO media four times faster than our previous generation of NAS archive solutions," reports Jim Heckethorn, director of Engineering and Product Development.

The latest technologies have been designed into the Elite SMS, including Quad Intel XEON processors, increased cache, and throughputs on hardware speeds and bandwidths that have more than doubled.

Additionally, a hardware RAID controller with battery backup, and up to twelve, 2TB SAS RAID Drives (delivering up to 24TB of raw RAID Cache) have been incorporated, all resulting in a 400% increase in throughput and a greater level of security.

Another technical enhancement of the SMS is an added high-speed cache SSD that buffers data before writing to the UDO Drives. This enables more data to be transferred to more drives simultaneously resulting in faster throughput while offloading the RAID workload.

The Archive Management Software is easy to navigate and configure while offering a feature set for managing data. New features have been added to the upgraded software that expands replication capabilities.

Archiving data with the correct technology is the key to reducing business costs. Over 80% of data on primary storage is rarely accessed and typically has high overhead costs associated with maintaining and backing up the data.

"A proper archive tier allows you to move static data to an Archive Appliance Elite where it no longer needs to be backed up. Once written to UDO media, the data no longer requires a constant power source," clarified Chris Carr, CEO. "This greatly reduces operational and overhead costs over the life of the archive while still providing maximum security for critical data."

Libraries operate with regulatory-compliant UDO media which offers longevity making it a cornerstone for any organization with a need for permanent, long-term data retention.

The company has indicated that there are over 17,000 data archiving libraries currently installed internationally.

Solutions are applicable to any industry or organization including government, medical, finance, and legal.

Scalable Archive Appliance Elite solutions are available for any size of organization or archive from entry-midrange to enterprise.