ID7 Feature page

VTL


	Disk based backup and recovery




		When it comes to backup, speed is king


	1U and 4U - 4TB to 48TB Automated clone of backup to physical tape . Replication and DR ready. Efficient Compression. Advanced Encryption. Greener storage, less power, increased reliability


	Now including enhanced Virtual Tape Library

		increased backup and recovery performance, decreased cost and ease of administration

		“By streamlining our enterprise class backup VTL based solutions we are the first to market an affordable VTL designed for the smaller and medium size business” The last five years have seen a disk based backup technology known as Virtual Tape Library (VTL) become adopted as the norm within the larger organisations. Although VTL deals with backup and recovery constraints common to all IT infrastructures, its high cost and wide ranging functionality is clearly focused at the enterprise level company. Whilst the smaller and medium sized business may not have the same complex infrastructures, we all face the same obstacles when it comes to protecting our information and data. The traditional tape solution still provides an efficient method of long-term protection, but today with the need to backup more and more data in less time and still provide for a realistic recovery, disk based solutions form the core of the modern backup and recovery appliance. By streamlining our enterprise class VTL solutions we are the first to market an affordable VTL designed for the smaller and medium size business. Complex configurations and emulations have been replaced with a simple one-click solution needing no specialised IT skills or administration. Providing the same benefits found at the highest of levels, our VTL options deliver the performance, reliability and availability of disk based solutions while enabling the use of existing backup software and procedures.

		”this is our 4th generation VTL delivering market leading performance and scalability but more importantly it benefits from customer feedback and real life experience”, Krzysztof Blaszkowski, VTL author. krzysztof.b @ id-7.com

Compression


	INCREASED RETENTION

	Allows up to twice as many backups to be housed

	INCREASED RELIABILITY

	Self contain data ensures full reliability. Deduplication type reduction utilise one-to-many relationships meaning that a single corrupt byte is likely to result in many restore failures as multiple jobs depend upon the corrupt byte.

	NO BACKUP PERFORMANCE IMPACT

	With hardware compression offering full speed in-line compression or more cost effective post backup software based compression, backup performance is not impacted .

	RESTORE PERFORMANCE

	Compression in-between backup application location and file-marks, preserving high speed indexed seeks and only uncompressing requested data .


	Intelligent compression for disk based backup


	“Data reduction for backup solutions without the major impact on performance and reliability associated with standard compression implementations or other reduction technologies such as de-duplication.”


	We are all aware of the growth of data and the difficulties associated with storing such capacities. Compression has well proven benefits and been used in tape media for many years, however when implemented in disk based backup solutions, compression can have significant drawbacks.

	Capacity in a disk based backup solution is important for retention, the more capacity you have, the more backups you can store. Longer term storage generally involves migration to tape for safe archiving, so the focus of a disk solution remains fast backup and maximum recovery performance. Data reduction is important, but should not impact these key performance goals.

ID7's intelligent compression preserves indexes to the application's location data maintaining performance whilst offering a 100% increase in capacity with minimal reduction in performance.

With hardware or software options, compression can take place in hardware in-line or on-the-fly at time of backup, or, for more cost effective implementations, in software off-line after the backup has completed.

Using tape compatible compression algorithms ensures the true linking of Virtual Media file size and physical tape media capabilities, a necessity when migration or duplication to tape is required for safe keeping.

Intelligent compression is part of ID7's Interlocking Storage technology and therefore perfectly complements and doubles the performance of other modules such as encryption and replication

Available on the 4U VTL-Value providing up to 48TB's in each enclosure.

Encryption


	INCREASED SECURITY

	World leading encryption algorithms keep your information private allowing you to store locally or transfer and copy backups off-site without concern.

	REDUCE COSTS

	Allows for the electronic transfer of backups without the expansive and risk associated with couriers and extra tape media. No need for expensive inline encryption devices.

	NO BACKUP PERFORMANCE IMPACT

	VTL offers dramatically faster backup, in-place encryption, automatically detecting and beginning the encryption process when a backup is complete, ensuring there no backup performance impact.


	Encrypted backups


	It's your information, keep it private.

Backups are often a comprehensive copy of our most confidential information, making it essential that we keep them secure and private. The challenge is that backups are relatively easy to move around whether housed on tape or on disk.

Given the ease of dispersing backups with technologies such as ID7's tape-by-wire, many organisations maintain off-site copies of backups for additional security. We can see why it is becoming more and more sensible to invest in disk based solutions which offer encryption options.

This latest addition to the VTL range provides in-place encryption. The virtual media is encrypted directly after the initial backup is complete, resulting in no backup performance loss or need for expensive inline hardware encryption.


	Today we still hear news regarding lost data and compromised personal information. The more information we store, the more we backup and the greater the risk of loss.


	Acceptable due diligence: Today it is appropriate for those who maintain or keep personal or client information to 'perform all reasonable steps to prevent such information being accessible by a third party'. Encrypted backups are key to ensuring that we meet such expectations and particularly if the backups are to be sent over any form of WAN or site-to-site link.

Clone2Tape


	EFFECTIVE SECURITY


	Provides complete data security at realistic price points, integrating tape into the backup solution simply and effectively.


	SMALL OR LARGE


	With options focused on the smaller business or inter-department and larger centralised HQ configurations, clone2tape offers solutions at all levels


	LOCAL AND REMOTE


	Interlocks with tape-by-wire to form an effective offsite tape archive and DR pool without the need to physically transport media.


	learn more


	Automated VTL to physical tape migration




	Whilst today's demand for high performance backup and recovery require the use of disk based solutions for the initial backup, for many applications a physical copy of a backup is required for safe keeping or archive purpose. The result is a secondary process which duplicates the initial disk backup to tape media. With standard disk based solutions this process is normally under the backup application control and requires server and storage network resource. ID7's clone2tape automates this process by duplicating the backup onto tape connected direct to the VTL, a quick and effective method which results in no network impact and does not affect the backup window.


	Seamlessly migrates local or replicated virtual media to physical media attached directly to the VTL No server or LAN impact, runs completely transparently and independently to the host network Barcode cloning technology ensures that the physical tape is recognised and referenced by the backup application catalogue Direct from tape restore – no need to restore to disk first ensuring maximum recovery time in DR situations.

	Unlike standard disk solutions ID7's clone2tape ensures catalogue integrity and dramatically reduces recovery time and increases reliability by propagating tape barcodes as highlighted overleaf. clone2tape also interlocks with tape-by-wire, a VTL based replication module which allows for a physical copy of the backup to created off-site eliminating the need to post media for archive or safe keeping.

Tape by Wire


	AFFORDABLE SECURITY


	Provides complete data security at realistic price points enabling professional disaster recovery solutions to be implemented at all levels


	SMALL OR LARGE


	With options focused on the smaller business or inter-department and larger centralised HQ configurations, tape-by-wire offers solutions at all levels.


	MAXIMIZE LINKS


	With inbuilt compression and encryption, data is transferred in less time and privately.


	learn more


	Tape-by-wire


	Off-site replication for backup and recovery.




	For decades tape has been the only viable method of sending backup data off-site for safe storage and disaster recovery objectives. With the rise of disk based backup solutions and increased communication performance, digital replication is clearly a modern-day alternative and alleviates the logistics and cost disadvantages of dispatching tape media. The process of creating off-site copies of backup data is to ensure recovery and whilst most disk based replication technologies offer a method of creating remote copies of data, they fail to offer realistic recovery plans due to a lack of backup application interaction or data structure.


	Focused on backup based applications, tape-by-wire provides a realistic 21st century off-site management solution Advanced recovery technology can get you up and running over 100 times faster than standard replication solutions. Can migrate to physical tape on remote site for archive, compliance or recovery needs Maintains barcode and application format throughout, ensuring catalogue consistency and fast recovery

	ID7's tape-by-wire takes disk based replication a step further by addressing backup specific requirements and emulating off-site procedures. Unlike standard disk replication, tape-by-wire preserves virtual tape format and barcode information ensuring that the backup applications cataloged remains consistent and accurate, allowing for swift complete or individual file recovery over WAN. Tape-by-wire offers a range of solutions to suit the smaller office or department or larger multi-site organisation looking for a centralised recovery plan.

Greener Storage


		Why use spin-down drive technology?

	up to 70% reduction in energy costs with increased reliabilit... why not use it?

	“When the storage system is not actively being used for long periods of time, why waste power and consume large amounts of energy for no reason? During such periods our Adaptive Power Management simply places the drives in a low-power standby state and transparently brings them back to life when needed.”

To many of us, power and energy is a juggling act between what we need and what we have. Whenever we introduce additional IT equipment we have to find more power and peripheral energies such as cooling. Rarely do we have options to significantly reduce energy and lower the cost to our business and our environment. For some time the Enterprise environments have used spin-down technology, a solution where the drives are placed in a low power

consuming standby mode when they have been inactive for a period of time. if we consider secondary storage such as D2D and VTL, the drives may only be active for a few hours a day during the backup stage.

So why have them fully powered and spinning for the 20 or so hours they are not in use? Why waste power and consume large amounts of energy for no reason?

As part of our commitment to bring Enterprise level to the average small and medium company we have implemented Adaptive Power Management within our SATA solutions. A simple one-click, one-off configuration will implement a policy to spin-down the drives after a period of inactivity or between preset times. The drives will automatically spin-up on activity so ther is no need to implement any further policies or change your practices.

By effectively controlling the uptime of SATA drives we also increase the reliability ensuring a longer lifecycle. Couple this with our high availability features such as RAID6 and link failover, and we have rock solid solutions comparible to those normally found in the Enterprise space, but without the Enterprise price tag.