Online Archiving Of Fixed Content: Easy Access And Long-Term Storage For Data

By Jonathan Buckley,
Vice President of Marketing,
PowerFile Inc.

Unlike in the private sector, government entities have always had the duty, if not the legal requirement, to save many files, digital or otherwise, with a timeline stretching perhaps forever. With the compounding effect of data growth, it has been nearly impossible to keep all but the most current data online. The default medium for archive was always tape, and to a lesser extent, offline optical storage. But with constituents' expectations shifting at the local, state, and federal levels for more online self-service, the situation now requires a different adaptive storage architecture — one that is more than just primary, nearline, and tape. And because of the energy and management expense, the answer can't just be cheaper spinning disk systems. Between the power needed to spin disk and cool disk, depending on location, one rack can cost more than $2,000 per month.

Emerging Demand For The Online Archive
The average enterprise data growth in the last few years is estimated at about 60% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The data growth among government and military agencies is driven by the existing infrastructure of large data repositories, the need to keep the information forever, and the digitization of paper/film-based data.

As a result, it did not take long for the growth in number of network filers, not just disk replacement, to hit new records. We have finally outstripped our ability to "pack data" with the ability to generate it. Macro evidence of this fact is that despite a precipitous fall in the price per byte of disk, the government continues to reach new highs in disk capacity spending. In addition, traditional disk and tape-based vendors are rushing to offer archival solutions. Witness the recent interest in CAS-based archival solutions such as EMC Centera, Nexsan Assureon, Archivas Cluster, and HP StorageWorks RISS.

SOURCE: PowerFile, Inc.