XenData With Cloud Storage for LTO at 0.5 Cents/GB/Month

XenData Ltd. announces XenData Cloud which provides high-capacity storage in a private cloud.

It serves as a hosted DR solution for customers that have volumes of digital media assets that range from 100TB to multiple petabytes.

To date, the company has more than 600 customer installations that archive video assets to LTO cartridges using robotic libraries, with each customer having the ability to automatically create duplicate LTO cartridges. With this service, customers can ship their duplicate cartridges to XenData’s datacenter, located in Nevada, USA, for hosting in the cloud, thus making their video assets available for download.

Once files are hosted in the cloud, users have access to their media files from anywhere in the world, requiring as little as two to three minutes for files to be accessed via the Internet.

Incorporating FileCatalyst’s core transport technology, which leverages UDP (User Datagram Protocol), it enables accelerated file transfers that make use of the available bandwidth. It also ensures the delivery of the customers’ digital assets. With the integration of the accelerated file transfer protocol, which is immune to the effects of latency and packet loss, it offers speed gains versus traditional file-transfer methods, allowing user transfer speeds many times faster than FTP.

With the service, users can send their video files on LTO cartridges written in open standard TAR or the LTFS exchange standard. Unlike conventional cloud storage, users own not only the content, but the storage medium itself and are allotted a dedicated server and logical LTO library physically located in the company’s datacenter. This allows customers to be in control, so if required, they can recall content by simply requesting their cartridges be shipped back to them. Unlike typical cloud storage which may take months of downloading to recover large volumes of content, this is done in a matter of days.

It reduces customer’s capital and operational costs, it also provides on-demand scalability – offering additional capacity costs at 0.5 cents/GB/ month and requiring no access fees.

“This is the first of a series of cloud product offerings that we intend releasing. It is aimed at enterprise customers in need of a cost effective hosted DR solution,” said Phil Storey, XenData CEO. “As cloud infrastructure matures globally, an increasing number of our customers are able to benefit from reasonably priced, reliable bandwidth. We will be keeping pace by adding additional functionality and services in the future.“