The State of CAS

In article , (acebgur) writes:
(Rob Young) wrote in message ...

It is a niche. It requires tying into an API. In a few years,
I suspect various solutions won't require API tie-in and so many
of these products today will be flash in the pans.


Hi Rob-

I just wanted to clarify one of your points. Not all CAS-based
storage solutions require the use of an API. For instance Centera
exposes a file system via an application gateway.

Yep - you can front-end it with something. Rube Goldberg.

But if all of 100 apps tie into the API, how else to sell
such a solution other than a gateway? So what path is that? HBA
to switch to gateway to CAS appliance? "Still much faster than
tape!" Puffs the salesman. Question: "What filesystems?"

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/...954844,00.html

Most major document management software providers have already integrated their
applications with Centera by writing to its API. EMC claims to have recruited
more than 300 Centera partners and resellers and offers 100 integrated
applications. But many legacy and homegrown applications have not been -- and
never will be -- ported to Centera. Enter Storigen Systems. Storigen's Centera
Application Gateway (CAG) lets users hook their existing fixed-content
management applications into EMC's Centera CAS system. The gateway speaks CIFS
and NFS on one side and Centera's language on the other, which allows users to
manage both new and legacy fixed-content applications under one umbrella.


---

NFS and CIFS. My - that's handy!

There are also
HSM/ILM based solutions that expose Centera as a file system. And,
aside from Centera, Permabit offers a full software only CAS solution
that is completely file based, with no API.


Yeah - HSM has been around for a while now.

It is hard to imagine that the technology will become a "flash in the
pan".

Sure - when the need for an API goes away and you aren't tied
into a storage vendor - that is the way to go. All this supposed
intelligence is/will make its way into the switches - probably
where it belongs. Elsewise, you end up building a Rube Goldberg
contraption and narrow your filesystem choices.

Compliance regulations are only getting stricter as we move
forward. When a financial institution is required to save all of
their emails for 7+ years and be able to deliver/authenticate them on
a moments notice, then a CAS-based product really becomes the ideal
solution. Otherwise which company out there wants to save 100+
individual copies of the same 2 MB attachment for 7+ years?

No one. Modern email systems don't work that way.

BLOCKS that haven't been touched in a while need to
migrate to cheap storage automatically. If they suddenly become
hot again, they should automatically migrate to faster storage.
Additional infrastructure and management doesn't appear the way
to go. The infrastructure and management should be in the switches.
The switch provisions VLUNs. The LUN is made up of differing types
of storage. And yes - it may take a while to get it right but it
would be an ideal way to go in my opinion as its greatest advantage
is transparency. Filesystem and database transparency.

Rob

No one. Modern email systems don't work that way.


Hmmm...The SEC just announced that they will be archiving their email
to a Centera. Modern email systems single-instance live content. A
Centera based email archiving solution single-instances all known
content.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040415/neth011_1.html

The SEC's Office of Information Technology had an initiative in place
to meet the following business objectives for thousands of mailboxes
in an Exchange environment:

Reduce the growing size of the Exchange messaging databases by
efficiently migrating mail off the message servers to specialized and
more affordable online archive storage.

Improve email archive search capabilities to enable ready access to
and production of email files as needed.

Also AT&T recently announced that they are basing their email
archiviing service on Centera.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/...958553,00.html

Looks like the flash in the pan is getting brighter and brighter :-)

You can learn more about Centera and CAS-based solutions at the
Centera Tech Group on Yahoo!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CenteraTechGroup/

Thanks!
Ace

(acebgur) writes:
[ ... ] Centera [ ... ] Centera [ ... ]

Spam with lots of words around it is still spam.

In article ,
says...
You can learn more about Centera and CAS-based solutions at the
Centera Tech Group on Yahoo!


Holy cow. You never give up do you? Sell stupid elsewhere. We're all
full up here.

In article , (acebgur) writes:

No one. Modern email systems don't work that way.


Hmmm...The SEC just announced that they will be archiving their email
to a Centera. Modern email systems single-instance live content.
A
Centera based email archiving solution single-instances all known
content.

Bill is right - definitely a marketdroid. Look, you're taking
a page out of AH's handbook. The modern email system remark
has to do with your earlier comment about "instead of keeping
200 copies you have one."


http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040415/neth011_1.html

The SEC's Office of Information Technology had an initiative in place
to meet the following business objectives for thousands of mailboxes
in an Exchange environment:

Reduce the growing size of the Exchange messaging databases by
efficiently migrating mail off the message servers to specialized and
more affordable online archive storage.

Improve email archive search capabilities to enable ready access to
and production of email files as needed.

Also AT&T recently announced that they are basing their email
archiviing service on Centera.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/...958553,00.html

Looks like the flash in the pan is getting brighter and brighter :-)


Sure - now they are up to 101 applications.

Rob

(Rob Young) wrote in message ...

The modern email system remark has to do with your earlier comment
about "instead of keeping 200 copies you have one."

Rob, the point that I was trying to make is that there is a difference
between an email system and an email archiving system. Email systems
typically manage active email data, where an email archiving system
can manage several years or decades worth of email and attachments.

You are correct that email systems have single-instance storage built
in. However when the data is archived to optical/tape multiple copies
of single-instance data can occur when the same document is archived
on multiple occasions (e.g.; a resume, x-ray, or some other
attachment). The difference is that email archiving solutions that
migrate content to a CAS appliance will be able to take advantage of
single instance storage whether 10 copies of the same document were
stored in 1-day, or continuously over a 5 or 10 year period.


Sure - now they are up to 101 applications.


Not necessarily. AT&T is offering an existing KVS CAS solution, and
the SEC is going with an existing EmailXtender CAS solution.

Thanks-
Ace

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CenteraTechGroup/

In article ,
acebgur wrote:
You are correct that email systems have single-instance storage built
in. However when the data is archived to optical/tape multiple copies
of single-instance data can occur when the same document is archived
on multiple occasions (e.g.; a resume, x-ray, or some other
attachment).

If your archiving system retains multiple copies of an object then you
will of course have multiple copies of that object. If you don't want the
redundancy then don't save multiple copies of the same object. That way
you save storage at the cost of reliability.

But this doesn't require CAS, it just requires a backup or HSM system that
follows the policy you're interested in.

--
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Time for your nap. | Peter da Silva | Har du kramat din varg, idag? 'U`