FalconStor Extends Virtual Tape Library Leadership With Single Instance Repository (SIR)
biz.yahoo.com
Tuesday June 20, 10:36 am ET
LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 2006--FalconStor Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: FALC)
Innovative SIR Technology Optimizes VTL Storage Efficiency and Offers Rapid File Versioning with Secure Data Browsing and Recovery Services
FalconStor Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: FALC - News), the leading developer of proven data protection solutions, today announced Single Instance Repository (SIR), a sophisticated de-duplication storage software service that facilitates efficient and scalable backup and archiving enterprise-wide. FalconStor SIR draws on FalconStor's patented IPStor® technology architecture to provide a policy-driven redundant data elimination (RDE) engine and object repository for backup and archive data designed to store only a single instance of each file or data block.
The innovative FalconStor SIR solution reduces backup costs and overhead by:
Vastly reducing the storage requirements for backup and archiving
Reducing WAN requirements for remote VirtualTape Library (VTL) replication for disaster protection purposes
Analyzing, identifying, and storing only unique data blocks and files
Providing optional encryption for increased security and reduced risks
Allowing version tracking of files and objects within the data repository
Providing system administrators with a faster data recovery path via new capabilities in file retrieval directly from the repository by version or time/date, without the need to go through the backup software
Allowing seamless user-enabled recovery directly from the repository via the unique FalconStor File Recovery Agent
Greatly expanding the amount of recovery points that can be kept on disk.
SIR interoperates with and enhances enterprises' current backup capabilities by offering seamless integration with FalconStor's VTL solution. FalconStor SIR and FalconStor VTL are built upon the company's established IPStor® network storage technology to offer immediate field-proven operating benefits for IT managers:
Leveraging of existing SAN storage for both VTL and the SIR repository
Business flexibility via heterogeneous storage attachment
Enterprise-class reliability via active-active clustering
Disaster recovery via secure remote replication
FalconStor is also partnering with third-party backup software vendors on a joint certification process that ensures accurate format interpretation of the virtual tape contents to help maximize storage efficiency while ensuring data integrity and optimal backup performance.
SIR can be packaged and deployed as a:
Separate single appliance or a high availability cluster transparently attached to a current enterprise VTL solution
Software add-on to existing VTL appliances, allowing cost-effective sharing of the same appliance and storage.
"FalconStor SIR provides immediate business value by significantly reducing resources required to maintain the backup/archive infrastructure while making that information instantly available when needed," said Prakash Babu, vice president of data protection, FalconStor. "Backup and archive data account for the vast majority of stored data in a typical enterprise, but the known limitations of tape storage prohibit fast access and recovery. FalconStor SIR removes the barriers to performance and efficiency, resulting in higher enterprise productivity."
When data is modified, SIR is able to detect and index any changes. For example, if two users are storing what they perceive to be their own versions of the same file, and one of them makes changes to their file, only the change is indexed and stored on the FalconStor Single Instance Repository. When the user goes to access the file, it is "rebuilt" by the SIR and returned to the user by combining the original file contents plus the indexed change. Access permissions are used to ensure that only the user to whom the file belongs has access to the changed file. Since the SIR repository was built from the ground up to provide extremely fast data recovery, only a single extra read operation is required to rebuild and recover the data from the object repository, making data recovery fast and easy. In addition, SIR greatly expands the amount of recovery points that can be kept on disk. Whereas before SIR only 30 days of recovery data might be able to fit on existing disk storage, now businesses can have the scalability to keep up to a year's worth of recovery points.
To optimize storage environments, FalconStor SIR utilizes its Redundant Data Elimination (RDE) Engine to scan the virtual tape system for duplicate files. Only unique data is then stored in the repository. The resulting "virtual" virtual tape, also known as an index tape (i-Tape) is stored back in the VTL library at a percentage that is a tiny fraction of the size of the original virtual tape. Each virtual tape is metadata linked to the repository for instant recovery when needed.
Unique to the FalconStor SIR solution is the ability to use the FalconStor File Recovery Agent for user-enabled recovery, allowing data recovery directly from the repository with no administrative intervention. The File Recovery Agent allows any version of any backed-up file to be viewed and retrieved directly from the single instance repository, without involving the original backup software, backup administrator, or even the virtual tapes themselves. This capability further improves operational efficiency and saves administrative costs.
"Our business demands an always-on IT infrastructure to ensure that educational institutions using our service have continuous access to the online communications tools we provide them," said James Wang, CTO, TimeCruiser. "FalconStor's suite of products has delivered phenomenal price/performance, compared to alternative offerings we have used. The single instance repository promises easy integration with our existing infrastructure and we anticipate the enormous benefits it will provide us."
According to Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst for Taneja Group, "IT customers who have tried disk based backup and recovery tools in the past eighteen months have by and far had an excellent experience. But they have retained perhaps a week's worth of data on disk. I expect the next step is for them to want to keep a year's worth of data on disk, if they can afford it. Technologies like SIR make that possible. Giving the end-user the ability to recover a file all by themselves makes it especially cool."
The FalconStor SIR solution delivers unprecedented efficiency, scalability, capacity, recovery speed, and management simplicity. It reduces both capital investments for storage and floor space, as well as the administrative costs for protecting up to Petabytes of data. FalconStor will also be leveraging SIR to bring object based single instance storage and data reduction technology to disk-to-disk backup solutions, as well as backup software and virtual tape libraries from third parties. Since the single instance repository is transparent to existing backup software and applications, it can be implemented without disruption into existing environments, allowing the re-use of current backup and storage infrastructure. |
