Storage Clarity Exhibiting at the Data Connectors Tech Security Conference in Calgary on June 18 2015

Storage Clarity will be exhibiting at the Data Connectors Tech Security Conference in Calgary on Thursday, June 18 2015.

Our partner Amenaza, the creators of SecurITree, will be at our booth.
SecurITree is a software package for attack tree based threat risk analysis. 

Learn about Bricata's ProAccel NGIPS appliances, including their 300 Gbps 4u unit, the LX300.

Please visit us and learn about how you can better preserve, protect and secure your data & clouds.

For additional info on the event: http://dataconnectors.com/upcoming-events-and-agendas/38-calgary-tech-security-conference-2015

For a free VIP pass: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/calgary-tech-security-conference-registration

NetApp SnapLock Functionality Missing on New NetApp Filers

SnapLock Functionality Missing on New NetApp Filers

It appears that NetApp's new ONTAP OS does not currently support SnapLock.  This is presenting a significant problem for NetApp owners that use SnapLock and need to replace/upgrade their existing NetApp filers. 

NetApp SnapLock software provides WORM (Write Once Ready Many) functionally on NetApp filers.  SnapLock is primarily used for compliance purposes to ensure the retention of files over a user specified time period.  It's very simple and effective for locking down semi-structured and unstructured file data.  Many commercial archiving software applications support SnapLock protocol.

The obvious question is: How can existing SnapLock users continue to use SnapLock with NetApp filers that do not support SnapLock?

One solution is to use Grau Data's FileLock software.  FileLock supports NetApp's SnapLock protocol.  Thus allowing users in Microsoft Windows environments the ability to have SnapLock functional volumes on NetApp filers that do not support SnapLock.  Users can even migrate the contents of existing SnapLock protected volumes on NetApp filers to new NetApp filers, or non-NetApp storage devices, running SnapLock functionality via FileLock. 

Grau Data's FileLock software product, transparently transforms almost any NTFS volume on a Microsoft Windows platform to a WORM NTFS volume; i.e., magnetic WORM.  FileLock allows written files to be read, but not to be altered within a user defined period.  Only when this retention period has expired, can the file(s) be altered or deleted.  Unauthorized access and tampering is no longer possible with FileLock.  FileLock is hardware independent.

For additional information on FileLock and how use FileLock with NetApp SnapLock, please contact Storage Clarity; phone: +1.403.764.1320, email: sales(at)storageclarity.com.

Affordable Email Archiving with Symantec Enterprise Vault and Grau Data FileLock

Reducing Archiving System Costs with Enterprise Vault

When you archive, it can be really advantageous, if not mandatory in certain industries, to use some form of WORM, "Write Once Read Many", storage technology.  Thus preventing alterations and deletions to the archive.

Symantec Enterprise Vault certified storage solutions that support WORM functionality can be very expensive.  Especially considering the ever increasing amount digital info being archiving, for longer and longer periods of time.

Enterprise Vault officially supports NetApp storage devices with SnapLock. SnapLock is a protocol used to provide WORM functionality on NAS/SAN storage devices.  It is also a FileLock supported protocol.

Grau Data's FileLock software product, transparently transforms almost any NTFS volume on a Microsoft Windows platform to a WORM NTFS volume; i.e., magnetic WORM.  FileLock allows written files to be read, but not to be altered within a user defined period.  Only when this retention period has expired, can the file(s) be altered or deleted.  Unauthorized access and tampering is no longer possible with FileLock.  FileLock is hardware independent.

How can you use FileLock with Symantec Enterprise Vault?

Simply install FileLock on an MS Windows server equipped with sufficient NTFS storage for archiving.  Configure FileLock to protect one or more NTFS volumes using SnapLock.  Next, network share the FileLock protected NTFS volume(s) and configure Enterprise Vault use the NTFS volume(s) for archiving as you would for SnapLock storage devices.

With FileLock, you can use any DAS/NAS/SAN storage hardware/system that is supported by MS Windows to archive via Enterprise Vault.  Normally, this will result in a significant cost savings.

As a bonus, FileLock includes built-in mirroring functionality.  This allows FileLock protected volumes to be mirrored on the same or different MS Windows system.

For additional information on FileLock and how use FileLock with Enterprise Vault, please contact Storage Clarity; phone: +1.403.764.1320, email: sales(at)storageclarity.com.

Aer Lingus selects Tegile storage arrays over EMC

A nice win for Tegile Systems.

Chris Mellor @ The Register posted today that Aer Lingus, an Irish Airline, has selected Tegile Systems Zebi storage arrays, displacing EMC; http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/28/tegile_augments_emc_at_aer_lingus/

Tegile Systems, Zebi arrays are hybrid flash storage arrays that offer an impress feature set, plus great performance.   Which has resulted in Tegile winning a number of awards; see below.

Rather than doing a typical brute force approach which focuses on simply having faster storage hardware, i.e., more flash, Tegile Zebi arrays have some rather clever built-in software that significantly boosts performance and scalability.

It's nice to see a small tech company with a great product winning against the traditional big storage companies.

For more info on Tegile and it's Zebi storage arrays, please visit the Tegile web site, http://www.tegile.com/, and/or contact Storage Clarity: phone: +1.403.764.1320; email: sales (at) storageclarity.com.  Storage Clarity is a Tegile partner.

Tegile Systems Awards

VMware Forum Calgary - Jan 21, 2014

Storage Clarity will be displaying at the VMware Forum in Calgary on Tuesday, Jan 21 2014.

We will be partnering with Tegile Systems, a leading manufacturer of flash-driven storage arrays for virtualized server and virtual desktop environments.

For additional info on the event, including registration:  
http://www.storageclarity.com/VMware_CALGARY_FORUM.html

Shorter Storage Product Lifetimes are the Norm

Shorter Storage Product Lifetimes are the Norm

Digital storage technologies are constantly evolving and changing.  This in turn is causing manufacturers to develop storage products that are designed to be used for three to five years, and then replaced with the latest generation of product or a new technology.  Given these parameters, devices and/or media with long lifetimes are a niche market.

For digital archiving environments, this means:

• Plan to replace your storage devices at least once every three to five years;
• Expect your storage media to outlive compatible read/write devices;
• Expect the storage media to fail sooner than the advertised lifetime;
• Plan for data migration, your archived data will most likely outlive several generations of storage devices and media.

For additional information and assistance on selecting archiving storage technologies, products and services, please contact Storage Clarity.

3-2-1 Archive and Data-Protection Best Practice

3-2-1 Archive and Data-Protection Best Practice

"3-2-1 Archive", is a simple yet very important archiving and data-protection best practice.

Simply stated it is:

            3 Copies of your Data

            2 Different Storage Technologies

            1 Copy Off-Site

Let's look at the 3-2-1 archive and data-protection best practice in detail.

A minimum of 3 copies of your business critical data, including archives.

Plan for the unexpected over the retention period of your archive.  Be prepared for storage system/device/media failures, corruptions, losses and human errors, by having at least three complete, self-contained/describing, verified copies of you data.

Use two different storage technologies.

To minimize the risk of being unable to access your data due to storage technology failures and/or limitations, use two different storage technologies. For example: magnetic disk and magnetic tape; magnetic disk and optical disk; or optical disk and magnetic tape.

In choosing your storage technologies be sure to factor in the retention period and how you are going to manage reading and migrating data over this time period.

Keep one copy off-site.

 For disaster recovery and business continuity purposes, an off-site copy of your data is a MUST.  Either by physical transporting the storage media, or by electronically transferring the data.

3-2-1 Archive and the Cloud

Traditionally, archiving has been very focused on physical storage devices and media.  Over the past several years, a growing number of organizations are outsourcing their archives, including management of their archives, to external third party data centers or cloud service providers.  

Today, these service providers tend to operate highly virtualized storage systems that may or may not span over multiple remote data centers.  This can present several storage audit/compliance challenges, including: security, verification, storage technologies, location, authentication and chain of custody.   

For many organizations, an external cloud service is perfect for an off-site copy of their data.  Additionally, some of these organizations maybe able to use external cloud services for managing all their archived data.  

It's important to note, that using external cloud services does not reduce or relieve the organization of their legal or corporate responsibilities concerning their archived data.  In fact it makes the undertaking of storage compliance audit's, i.e., a cloud storage compliance audit, not optional, but mandatory for most organizations.

The 3-2-1 archive and data-protection best practice can work well with cloud environments.  It just needs some updating to practically deal with highly virtualized environments and third party cloud service providers.  An excellent topic for a future posting.

For additional information on the 3-2-1 best practice, archiving in clouds and cloud storage compliance audit's, please contact Storage Clarity.