StorSentry

---

StorSentry :  THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION FOR SELF HEALING ARCHIVES

StorSentry is a suite of software products that provides large archive and backup users the ability to :

• Assess the risk of losing their data stored on tape automation systems
• Verify the archive and backup storage system
• Automatically repair defective or poor quality elements

Overview

• StorSentry is a real time, pro-active monitoring solution that allows administrators to anticipate problems in digital archives affecting hardware and software infrastructure.
• A real-time dashboard identifies errors; alarms are triggered in line with preset thresholds. Action recommendations are generated in line with the risk management policy defined. Customized reporting provides ongoing monitoring for the systems implemented.
• Using its powerful algorithms, StorSentry pro-actively generates clear recommendations based on the risk policies defined by users, allowing users to quickly fix issues and avoid downtime.
• Customized reporting provides in-depth analysis of archive resource performance and usage, to support the rapid growth of these archives. With increasing capacity per media, exceeding 1 TB / tape, StorSentry becomes a key element of these growing archive platforms.

Continuous monitoring of all the tape archive infrastructure and actionable recommendations

StorSentry captures information directly at the tape media’s and drives’ lowest level. StorSentry collects and processes this information related to the quality and performance of read/write operations, and provides users with clear options to keep their assets in good health.

A real-time dashboard to anticipate degradations and identify the root cause of failures

Using quality thresholds according to media group, StorSentry generates recommendations and provides all of the information needed to identify degradations and pro-actively take action to avoid failures.
A complete operating history to ensure proper management of storage media capacity
StorSentry is not solely limited to preventing the loss of critical assets, thanks to its operation record history and its reporting system. StorSentry represents a comprehensive solution to manage the capacity evolution and usage of tape library systems.

A complete and regularly updated functional environment

• OSs: Windows, Linux, HPUX, IBM Aix, Sun Solaris, IBM MVS, Bull CGOS…
• Archive Applications: TSM, Netbackup, Legato, SAM-FS, HPSS, DIVA, StorNext…
• Virtualization solutions: Falconstor, Fujitsu Siemens, SUN, IBM…
• Libraries: Sun, IBM, HP, EMC, Quantum, Imation, Overland, SGI, HDS, Tandberg…

Benefits

StorSentry is a unique solution for the monitoring of digital assets in tape archives, with significant advantages:

• Reduce risk of losing digital content by identifying issues on tape and drives before they become critical and put valuable content at risk.
• Migrate digital content at the onset of degradations to optimize cost and reduce risk.
• Reduce archive downtime by immediately identifying the root cause of problems upon tape automation failure, speed up diagnostics and improve system efficiency.
• Reduce tape archive costs by optimizing performance of the tape system having access to critical parameters such as data flows and tape drive usage.
• As tape capacities increase to hold multiple terabytes of data, loss of a single tape becomes completely unacceptable.

 

StorSentry Verify and RepairAutomation of Archive Quality Processes

StorSentry Verify and Repair software provides automated policies to manage defective or poor quality tapes and drives and thus relieves users from these hardware management tasks.

StorSentry Verify and Repair software allows users to fully automate their archive quality management tasks such as :

• Complete verification of suspected tapes or tapes that have not been accessed for a long period
• Automatic migration of suspected of defective tapes
• Technology format conversion based on policies
• Regular Drive testing with manufacturer reference checks
• Fully embedded automatic drive testing

Fully Integrated with HSM solutions

The StorSentry Verify and Repair software is fully integrated with leading HSM or backup products for an automated approach of hardware management tasks keeping consistency of metadata and synchronized processes. Currently supported : SAMFS / StorNext More coming soon.

Open solution for easy integration

No matters how complex is the media environment, users can create workflows and interface with multiple applications for a fully automated solution.

Scalable solution to meet the demand of heterogeneous customer needs,

From basic to advanced reporting, from regular inspections of suspected elements (tape or drives) to massive verification/migration processes , StorSentry Verify and Repair can scale to meet the performance needs of the most demanding applications.

Policy driven Verification & Repair

Can be immediate or with a user defined policy to take in account production constraints and avoid interference with production critical tasks.

Supported Environments

StorSentry Verify and Repair runs on the same server that the one that hosts the StorSentry Risk Assessment product. No additional hardware is needed. The software has a Web-based GUI that can be easily installed on a local plateform or on a remote location.

Business Results

• Reduce operationnal tasks
• Increases SLAs
• Reduce risks for Preservation
• Reduces H/W maintenance costs
• Improve ressources usage
• Lower TCO

With StorSentry Verify and Repair fully integrated with the Risk assessment main module, users have a complete solution to build self healing archives that can scale to very large capacities with efficient cost management.

 

Active Migration for digital content preservation

With digital content, preservation becomes a real challenge for two major reasons :

Technology obsolescence :

lifecycle of tape technologies is now 3-5 years, compatibility with previous generations is generally limited to last version, capacities per tape are almost doubling every 18 months, maintenance of old technologies are expensive (foot print is high and failure rate increases). But moving petabytes of data is not obvious, will takes months and can create major downtimes in production systems.

Format obsolescence :

Data formats in archives and backup systems are generally proprietary formats, as vendors

strategies change, or customer’s needs evolve, moving from one format to another is becoming a regular demand . Such migration is not part of the features provided by most of software, so users have to go through complex processes to update their format. If nothing is done over time the content of the archive is not usable anymore.

StorBee is a suite of software products and services that provides users the ability to preserve their content :

• Refresh of technology to cope with obsolescence and reduce costs while improving SLAs
• Migration of archive / backup formats to keep data ready to be used by applications

You are planning a technology refresh or a migration, you have issues with your preservation plans or just want to know more, contact us

This post is also available in: French