XenData Adds Amazon Cloud Storage Support to Archive Server Range

XenData Ltd  will add support for Amazon Web Services Storage across its entire archive appliance and server product range, including the SX-10 and SX-520.

The cloud connectivity will provide customers added flexibility and enable them to enhance data protection capabilities by allowing content to be stored and archived to Amazon cloud, LTO and Sony Optical Disc Archive (ODA), or a combination of all three simultaneously.

With XenData’s cloud support, customers will be able to connect to Amazon’s Gateway-VTL. Customers will benefit from a scalable and durable virtual tape infrastructure via the cloud in addition to having a local LTO or ODA archive.

Amazon’s Gateway-VTL has a collection of virtual tapes backed by Amazon S3 for fast access, or via a Virtual Tape Shelf (VTS) supported by Amazon Glacier. The VTL uses an iSCSI interface, which allows immediate and frequent access to archived files from virtual tapes. Virtual tapes that hold infrequently accessed content can be moved to lower cost VTS.

“By adding support for AWS Storage, we are giving our customers added flexibility and data protection capabilities, while providing the reliability and affordability they’ve come to expect with XenData,” said Phil Storey, XenData CEO.

Included within the AWS-enabled XenData product range are the SX-10 archive appliance and SX-520 Series of archive servers. The SX-10 appliance can scale from managing a single LTO drive to a 225 TB LTO library and comes available with SAS or FC connectivity. For more demanding applications, the XenData SX-520 Series of archive servers manages LTO, Sony ODA libraries and RAID, and can scale to multiple Petabyte capacities. Both archive solutions support a wide range of robotic LTO libraries, including models from Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle StorageTek, Qualstar, Quantum and Spectra Logic.

The cloud-based archive is provided using a monthly subscription model. XenData’s AWS support offers the first terabyte of storage free. For customers requiring more than a terabyte of cloud storage, a subscription fee of $.01 per gigabyte is charged per month by XenData. AWS monthly subscription charges are not included and are payable to Amazon.

The Amazon cloud support will be available in the SX-10 and SX-520 products by the end of this year. In addition, existing customers under a maintenance contract will be able to upgrade to add AWS support free of charge.

The solution will be demonstrated at the IBC 2014 Exhibition in Amsterdam from September 12-16.