Best Data Archiving Solutions: Enterprise Storage Forum

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There are various approaches to archiving. You can: pack vaults full of precious manuscripts and seal them in a vacuum; fill endless rows of filing cabinets with paperwork; or copy documents onto microfilm to save space. But these days, computerization has largely replaced most of these traditional methods.

That said, there are still numerous ways to go about it.

“Archiving is ideal for organizations looking to reduce their email and file storage requirements, minimize backup times and boost user productivity, but it means different things to different people,” said Danny Milrad, Director, Product Marketing, Storage Products, Barracuda. “Some organizations need to capture and archive everything while others want more control.”

Here are a few options ranging from the traditional storage powers, to lesser known players and also a couple that see tape as the best way to archive anything.

Symantec

Symantec Enterprise Vault is an on-premises archiving solution that stores, manages and discovers information. Its policies automatically move stale, not-recently-accessed data off expensive primary storage to archival storage. It helps retain data for its mandated lifecycle and provides options for expiration. It indexes archived items to speed search. Users typically initially license Enterprise Vault to archive Microsoft Exchange or IBM Domino email. Journal archiving and entry-level eDiscovery and supervision options are available.

Enterprise Vault File System Archiving supports native archiving of Windows-based unstructured data. File System Archiving migrates files to archival storage where they are compressed, deduplicated and indexed. The Mail Connect feature of Enterprise Vault 11 extends archiving to cloud-based email programs such as Google Gmail and Zimbra.

“Enterprise Vault 11 extends what email platforms may be archived, beyond Microsoft Exchange/Office 365 or IBM Domino,” said Shawn Aquino, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Symantec Corp. “You can deploy Enterprise Vault on-premises, or choose Enterprise Vault.cloud or Enterprise Vault on Microsoft Azure or other private clouds.”

EMC

EMC SourceOne archiving provides access to archive content from email, file and Microsoft SharePoint, both structured and unstructured data. This extends the SourceOne family with the ability to manage file content by archiving and shortcutting any CIFS source, archiving and stubbing Windows File Systems and NAS devices.

SourceOne for Files works with more than 1400 secondary platforms including core EMC products such as Data Domain, VNX, VMAX and Centera. It also works with other platforms such as NAS devices and virtual libraries.

SourceOne Archiving for Email archives email content from Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Domino. It captures, indexes the data and moves less valuable data to a less costly storage tier. It can be retrieved and disposed of manually or automatically.  

“SourceOne Email Archiving is an on-premise and cloud-based enterprise archiving solution used to reduce the space required on company’s mail servers and to aid in complying with legal requirements for archiving email messages,” said Jennifer Zhou, Product Marketing Manager for SourceOne Archiving products. “It works with VMware-integrated products, Data Domain, VNX, Atmos, Centera and Isilon.”

Barracuda Networks

This company offers two archive options. Barracuda ArchiveOne delivers reliable file archiving and management. It is said to solve problems associated with data accumulation, reduce storage needs and improve performance. Once installed on the server, there’s no additional desktop software to be installed on client systems. The system allows an administrator to define policies to determine how to manage files.

Barracuda Message Archiver is all about reducing email storage requirements, ensuring that compliance and retention policies are executed, and providing mobile or desktop access to email. Archiving and mailbox management policies can be implemented by folder, mailbox, or user group – against messages, calendar and task items – by date, content and attachments. Policies can be set to take specific archive actions to archive messages and any attachments, archive attachments only, or archive messages and delete message stubs from mailbox folder. An appliance is also available which uses the Barracuda Cloud to move information to the cloud as a secondary tier of storage.

“Barracuda gives users deployment flexibility from simple-to-deploy appliances that can be up and running in minutes to virtual appliances and software that allow them to leverage their existing virtual infrastructure and utilize existing storage,” said Milrad. “We also offer stackable appliances, federated search and cloud connected archives for a secondary tier of storage or as a replication mirror for disaster recovery.” 

Mimecast

Mimecast provides cloud-based email, file and IM archiving through a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that supports Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office 365 and Lotus Domino without the need for extra hardware. It supports traditional mailbox and/or storage management archiving, as well as compliance-driven and eDiscovery-based archiving from the cloud. Users are given access to their personal archive through a Mimecast for Outlook app, as well as via smartphone and tablet apps.

This is part of the Mimecast enterprise information archive. Mimecast collects files on a scheduled basis and moves them into the cloud archive, where users and administrators can run searches and discover content.

“All of Mimecast’s products are integrated into our Unified Email Management platform, which is a built by us from the ground up,” said Orlando Scott-Cowley, Director of Technology Marketing at Mimecast. “Integration at a platform level allows us to use gateway-based data, such as message metadata, in the archive for better indexing, eDiscovery and compliance. We process globally, 100 million messages a day.

Spectra Logic  

While disk predominates in the above tools, there are also those that see tape as the obvious choice for archiving of large volumes of information. Spectra Logic’s BlackPearl is a gateway to LTFS tape as a means of providing a massive object store which can be used for archiving. It is said to allow users to archive all the data they want for as long as they want while maintaining accessibility. Objects can be cached in BlackPearl, where the object database resides, then managed and move to long-term, low cost storage in the form of LTFS tape.

“Since the system is optimized for large objects to take advantage of the performance and capacity of removable media like LTFS tape, small documents and files may be bundled into larger objects for movement to BlackPearl,” said Jon Hiles, Manager, Product Management, Spectra Logic. “Email archiving would require bundling of email files and attachments into larger objects in order to optimize BlackPearl performance.”

Fujifilm Data Storage

Fujifilm’s Dternity data archiving combines disk with tape. It takes advantage of open LTFS tape standards, using Fujifilm technology to provide onsite archiving and cloud data storage in a vendor-neutral way.

Data that is archived with Dternity is accessed as network attached storage. There are no proprietary formats or applications needed to access files. Like any other network drive, users can drag and drop, copy and paste, or directly navigate to archived files and folders. Data stored in the Dternity Media Cloud is available through a user portal.

“Dternity is designed to meet the needs of companies dealing with large amounts of unstructured data,” said Dan Greenberg, Director of New Products, Fujifilm Data Storage. “Most Dternity users utilize it for the archiving and storage of large fixed data file types, such as video and images, but it can be used in any storage architecture that utilizes file-based archiving.”  

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Drew Robb
Drew Robb
Drew Robb is a contributing writer for Datamation, Enterprise Storage Forum, eSecurity Planet, Channel Insider, and eWeek. He has been reporting on all areas of IT for more than 25 years. He has a degree from the University of Strathclyde UK (USUK), and lives in the Tampa Bay area of Florida.

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