Crossroads Systems and Spectra Logic Partnering

Crossroads Systems, Inc.,a
provider of data protection solutions, and Spectra Logic Corporation announced a
partnership to offer a solution that can provide an 81% reduction in
performance video storage costs.

Because storage alone can consume up to 50% of a video
surveillance project, video surveillance professionals must find alternatives
that solve the dilemma of balancing storage costs with the need for more
capacity.

The joint solution decreases costs by combining Crossroads’
StrongBox NAS solution with the Spectra Logic T950 tape library.

StrongBox is a NAS archive solution that leverages the LTFS as its volume storage medium. It serves as an
online non-proprietary and portable data vault for
long-term video data storage, while Spectra Logic’s T950 tape library provides volume storage. The combined solution incorporates disk
for fast file storage and retrieval, and physical tape for cost-effective,
reliable and long-term storage.

Cost Comparison

The advantageous aspect of a digital tape-based approach is the
cost savings associated with a move from an all disk-based environment to a NAS
storage solution based on LTFS technology. For example, the savings in TCO for
storing 1PB of video files (2 copies) over a 10-year period utilizing
Crossroads StrongBox LTFS NAS and Spectra T950 is nearly $6.5 million and an 81% reduction, as illustrated here:

• Crossroads StrongBox and
  Spectra T950: Acquisition Costs (Hardware, Media and Software): $832,102 Support
  (Hardware and Software): $653,909 Energy: $9,784 TOTAL: $1,495,795
• SAN Disk: Acquisition Costs (Hardware, Media and Software): $5,749,645 Support
  (Hardware and Software): $1,829,829 Energy: $234,760 TOTAL: $7,814,234

The solution offers
video surveillance professionals:

• Cost-Savings: To ensure minimal total cost of ownership, the Spectra
  T950 tape library offers a growth path to meet short and
  long-term capacity requirements. As a less expensive alternative to
  storage mediums, LTO tape provides the principal storage medium within the T950
  library.
• Scalability: The StrongBox/T950
  solution grows to fit an organization’s needs with scalable augmentations for
  both disk and tape layers. Store millions of hours of content as the video
  network expands. A single box can hold up to 5 billion files, and the
  Spectra T950 scales up to ten thousand LTO slots in a single library system.
• Complete Accessibility: StrongBox/T950 functions as standard NAS,
  giving file access to multiple simultaneous users, anywhere in the
  world. File access on a Spectra LTO library is similar to hard disk, CD/DVD
  disc or USB media in that there is full drag and drop capability.
• Vendor Neutral through LTFS: StrongBox never modifies data. Instead,
  LTFS and LTO media ensure that files are accessible. LTFS
  technology refers to the open-nature, self-describing format of LTO-5 tape media.
  Because of the open standard of LTFS, data written to StrongBox can be read by
  any LTFS enabled drive.
• Reliability and Security: Data protection is self-contained within StrongBox through
  user-generated policies such as multi-copy, WAN replication and self-healing.
  The built-in system monitor proactively assesses the health of the disks, tape
  cartridges, drives and libraries to provide a view into system health,
  alerting users to potential risks before an issue occurs. For added security,
  the StrongBox/T950 solution offers a free encryption key management option that
  protects content.

StrongBox, combined with Spectra Logic’s library, provides customers
a new file-based solution that can scale from terabytes to petabytes to support
long-term data retention requirements. It connects to the network via
1GbE or 10GbE and plugs into the T950 via SAN (8Gb FC) or directly
with SAS. Through the use of StrongBox data management policies, video data is
served back to the application while simultaneously retrieving archived data
from tape, thus providing the application or client performing data read rates.

"The demand for storage
capacity to retain video surveillance images is growing at an unprecedented
rate driven in part by increasing high resolution digital cameras and longer
data retention polices," said Nathan Thompson, CEO of Spectra Logic.
"We are delighted to team with
Crossroads Systems to provide customers with storage solutions that enable them
to preserve surveillance video while meeting their long-term retention and
accessibility requirements."

"We are pleased to
announce our partnership with Spectra Logic, a company that boasts more than 30
years of data storage innovation," said Rob Sims, president and CEO of
Crossroads. "Partnerships
with companies such as Spectra Logic underscore the unique capabilities that
StrongBox brings to the video surveillance community. StrongBox serves as an
ideal companion for existing archive solutions, as it brings unprecedented cost
savings and data portability through the use of LTFS."