Imation announces next generation object store

Imation has launched its next generation object store, the Nexsan™ Assureon™ secure automated archive solution. By cost-effectively consolidating storage tiers, securing data and simplifying storage management, the Assureon platform transforms the way organizations deploy and manage data archiving.

Government, healthcare and financial organizations in particular are challenged daily with managing rapid, unpredictable growth in digital content and data, while ensuring compliance with industry and government regulations. The Assureon solution brings advanced, secure automated archiving to mid-sized organizations and enterprises to optimize storage infrastructures and manage regulatory compliance.

By deploying the Assureon solution, organizations can automate storage policies to encrypt, self authenticate, self manage, self-heal and self configure storage for unstructured files and content.

“Archive automation is critical for organizations confronted with managing the costs, administration and growth of mandated secure retention of unstructured data,” said Deni Connor, principal analyst, Storage Strategies NOW. “The Nexsan Assureon solution is a highly advanced archive storage platform, notable for the way it simplifies and automates data ingestion, and assures data integrity in a single hardware-software offering.”
Unlike other competitive archiving solutions, Assureon does not require that applications be customised to use proprietary APIs in order to store their data in the archive. Users do not need to learn new processes or change how they access data.

“When we talk to IT leaders, we hear that organizations are challenged to manage exponentially increasing data sets, while complying with strict government and industry data retention and security requirements. The Assureon solution offers mid-sized organizations and enterprises a single, highly advanced, automated disk-archiving solution to secure and manage this data,” said Mike Stolz, vice president of marketing for Imation’s Nexsan storage solutions. “Administrators can deploy the Assureon solution to manage their entire data protection architecture, controlling all critical data protection functionality, while shrinking storage infrastructure and its associated costs.”

Assureon 7 Improves Performance, Optimizes Storage Management

The latest Assureon 7 release features a number of enhancements that further improve performance and ease of use, including:

· Virtual shortcuts deliver near-instant recovery: The Assureon solution allows users to recover quickly in the event of a server crash by simply installing the Assureon client software on a server. In addition, users now can deploy “virtual shortcuts” with clustered network attached storage (NAS), allowing multiple servers to access Assureon files, enabling a redundant cluster configuration for faster recovery.

· Storage pools optimize disk space: The Assureon solution enables the file system to expand onto multiple disk arrays. This allows for more efficient use of disk space and simplifies system management.

· Next generation hardware platform delivers high performance: The Assureon platform is now based on advanced processors and Nexsan E-Series™ high-density disk storage systems.

· Data ingestion throttling optimizes server performance: The Assureon server enables IT managers to optimize data ingestion speed with server load, ensuring efficient data transfer while maximizing server performance.

· Flexible ingestion options: Assureon uniquely offers a number of options for how data is collected and fed into the archive, including:

o Via the network or cloud, using Assureon Client software.
o Via NAS-based Assureon Edge, a 2U server with options available for ingestion in Linux or Unix based environments (supporting both CIFS and NFS); or Assureon High Speed Edge, utilizing Infiniband connections.

In addition, options are available for ingestion via SnapLock Protocol, XML Ingestion File, and optional API integration to manage file retention and disposition.

· Administrator audit trail facilitates auditing: All configuration changes to the Assureon system are now tracked and recorded to facilitate auditing. The new audit trail feature provides a user interface for searching and filtering through audit records.