Crossroads Joins Active Archive Alliance

Crossroads Systems, Inc. has joined the Active Archive Alliance as a contributing member.

The Active Archive Alliance is a non-profit storage industry association dedicated to market education on the evolving use of active archives for simplified, online access to all unstructured file data.

The industry trend toward active archiving is being enabled and accelerated by recent advancements in active archive applications as well as archive tape and disk storage technologies. Today’s active archive applications provide the ability to see and access data on tape through a file system interface, making it easy and affordable to view and search archived data files in large heterogeneous online active tape and disk storage pools.

Last month Crossroads announced plans to launch a new tape-based archive product that leverages the new Linear Tape File System (LTFS) technology. It’s designed to address the need for low cost and reliable long-term data preservation for both enterprise and SMB organizations.

Additionally, Crossroads offers ReadVerify Appliance (RVA), a standalone appliance that proactively validates the integrity of tape backup systems. Reducing tape replacement costs and guaranteeing that data is always recoverable, RVA provides a tool to monitor, track and report on the performance, utilization and health of tape devices and tape media.

By continually diagnosing operational backup errors, organizations experience performance improvements and cost savings. Crossroads also offers services that utilize RVA to provide a detailed assessment of tape storage systems. It announced RVA 4.0, which marks the availability of RVA software for VMware ESXi 4.1 virtual environments. By helping to maximize the use of both existing storage and server resources, RVA 4.0 improves tape system efficiency in virtual environments just as it does when used as an actual physical appliance.

"The Active Archive Alliance’s mission parallels Crossroads’ commitment to providing intelligent active archive technology that maximizes the use of tape systems," said Rob Sims, president and CEO of Crossroads Systems. "We’re pleased to join the Active Archive Alliance, as our technologies offer innovative, never-before available methods to proactively monitor and efficiently store long-term data."