This week, tape storage provider introduced Vail, storage software that combines data across storage environments under a single namespace. This gives end users quick access to data, regardless of what storage it is in. Vail can also reduce costs by optimizing storage between local and cloud storage, according to Spectra Logic, to minimize outbound traffic charges.
Vail can store data from public cloud storage, Spectra Logic hardware, and third-party storage hardware move to a software management layer. Administrators can then synchronize and migrate data across the storage environments, configure policies for storing or moving data, and perform other data management tasks.
Vail’s goal is universal accessibility and optimized data placement, said David Feller, Vice President of Product Management and Solutions Engineering at Spectra Logic. Policies in the back end put data in the best places to minimize storage costs and maximize application performance, but the object storage front end abstracts all of this from the end-user perspective. In most cases, end users don’t care where a file is physically located as long as they can still access that information, said Feller.
« It doesn’t matter where your data is – on VMs or physical storage – we present everything as S3. We make everything look like one big storage pool, ”said Feller.
In addition, Vail can connect to Spectra Logic’s tape libraries by using BlackPearl, the vendor’s object storage platform, as a gateway, said Feller. In this use case, customers could link a tape-based, on-premises, Amazon Glacier-like environment to Vail, giving users access to a tier of archive storage.
Vail, which is expected to be generally available in November, does not need to be on Spectra Logic hardware running, added Feller. While not making the list exhaustive, Feller said the software can run on Dell EMC Isilon NAS and any tier of public cloud storage.
Vail lacks some of the features that more established data management providers offer, but as an initial release, it is a solid start, said Marc Staimer, President of Dragon Slayer Consulting. At start-up, Vail can provide storage administrators with visibility into the storage environment and policy configuration through templates, but the next step will be collecting metadata to enable more automatic and granular policy setting functionality. This would make an administrator’s job easier and allow Vail to work on a larger scale, said Staimer.
« You don’t collect the metadata, and that’s something you have to do eventually, but it’s a good start. It looks promising, « said Staimer.
Spectra Logic has an established customer base and a clear development path, and this will give Vail some initial market momentum, he added.
Although Spectra Logic is generally known for its tape libraries , it has been expanding beyond the ribbon since BlackPearl was launched about a decade ago, Staimer said. Vail puts the provider in direct competition with data management providers such as Komprise, StrongBox, Datadobi, and Data Dynamics, but none of these companies are currently dominating the market. There is still a lot of unmet market demand, said Staimer.
« More and more customers are switching to the abstraction of data from the infrastructure, » said Staimer. « They realize that the data is important, not the storage. »
Johnny Yu reports on corporate privacy news for TechTarget’s SearchDataBackup and SearchDisasterRecovery storage sites. Prior to joining TechTarget in June 2018, he wrote for USA Today’s consumer product review site Reviewed.com.
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