Spectra Logic Launching Vail

Distributed multi-cloud software that unifies data to enable on-premises applications and cloud services

This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on October 21, 2021 at 2:33 pm

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Spectra Logic Corp. announced the transformation and expansion of its entire product portfolio with Attack Hardened and multi-cloud solutions.

The introduction of Vail is an addition to firms new data storage and management ecosystem. It is a distributed multi-cloud software designed to provide universal access and placement of data across multi-site and multi-cloud storage, enabling seamless hybrid and multi-cloud workflows.

The new portfolio also includes the expansion of the Spectra’s BlackPearl multi-purpose hybrid storage platform, which has offered capacity NAS and S3 to tape for over 10 years, and now includes a native S3 interface providing local on-premises S3-standard object storage using the same economical scale-up architecture. S3 enables bi-directional synchronization of data between public cloud and on-premises storage. BlackPearl helps to protect data from external and internal threats with new Attack-Hardened features such as triggered snapshots, multi-factor authentication, encryption and virtual air gap for ransomware mitigation.

Additionally, the company has fortified its entire suite of solutions, including its StorCycle Storage Lifecycle Management software, and its family of enterprise-class tape library solutions, against the impact of ransomware and other cyberthreats with the addition of patent pending Attack-Hardened features that help protect customers from cyberattacks, and offer them improved business continuity through rapid restore of clean data after an attack.

“Our successful 40-year track record has led us to develop a new generation of data management and storage solutions for multi-cloud environments so that customers can take full advantage of the best aspects of on-premises applications and multiple cloud services with a single easy-to-use interface,” said CEO Nathan Thompson. “And with the increase in global ransomware attacks, as well as Spectra’s success in prevailing against a malicious attack, we have added a host of Attack-Hardened features into our entire suite of solutions to enhance ransomware resiliency for our customers.”

Spectra’s new data management and storage portfolio includes:

Vail – Distributed Multi-Cloud Data Management – Any User, Any Data, Any Site, Any Cloud
Hybrid cloud environments are putting huge strains on IT professionals who must manage and secure data in multiple clouds and on local storage in multiple sites. new distributed multi-cloud software Vail centralizes data management across on-premises and multi-cloud architectures, enabling dynamic on-demand data access, placement and storage with a single global namespace.

“Today, 92% of IT organizations are leveraging some public cloud services, yet most continue to maintain on-premises data centers for cost and data security reasons, to name a few,” said Scott Sinclair, ESG senior industry analyst. “This hybrid cloud architecture is often difficult to manage and protect without a solution such as Spectra’s Vail software, which can unify and safeguard an organization’s data, no matter where the data is located, whether in the cloud, multi-clouds, or on premises in multiple sites, anywhere in the world.”

Vail’s easy-to-use interface delivers policy-based data orchestration that presents all data stored anywhere as a single pool of storage, streamlining workflows and reducing overall costs for organizations that want to leverage the power of the cloud without the hefty egress fees. With Vail, it does not matter where data is created or stored, whether in a public cloud, on-premises, a hybrid set-up or multi-cloud, because all files appear in their native format and are readily accessible and securely protected.

Covered by multiple pending patents, Vail provides:

A single name space for objects which may be located in multiple locations on varying storage types
Multi-directional data synchronization across cloud(s) and on premises
Server-less cloud-based management and configurable policy engine to manage data across multiple clouds and on-premises sites with full consistency
Ability to migrate to the cloud or move between clouds to use the best services of particular clouds without cloud vendor lock-in
Egress optimization for lowest cost and fastest data accessibility independent of data’s physical location
A secure, central repository for long-term data preservation and disaster recovery
On-premises Glacier storage using automated tape libraries

“Spectra’s Vail solution raises the bar with the introduction of a new way to adopt and manage data silos, no matter where they are located, whether on-premises or in the cloud, providing unified access to dispersed data,” said Philippe Nicolas, analyst,Coldago Research. “It is a perfect illustration of U3 – Universal, Unified and Ubiquitous – a concept that is driving exciting new product developments in the market.”

BlackPearl – Affordable, Multi-Purpose and Scalable Backbone of any Hybrid Cloud Strategy
BlackPearl Platform is a multi-purpose hybrid storage ecosystem that easily and cost effectively scales up as object and file volumes grow, adapts as operational requirements change, and enables easy synchronization of data between on-premises and cloud storage. It offers customers flexible storage that provides multiple types of media (cloud, disk, flash and tape).

BlackPearl provides:

Scale-up NAS, and S3 storage combined to over 20PB in a single 42U rack with a combination of disk and flash for high performance

Support for native S3 protocols with patented BlackPearl S3 technology
Support for existing Spectra DS3 applications
Seamless support for On-Premises Glacier storage, including spin-down object

storage disk and connectivity to automated tape
Replication to offsite storage and public cloud for disaster recovery
Bi-directional data synchronization for automatic replication between on-premises storage and cloud

StorCycle – Free Up Primary Storage and Migrate Data to the Right Storage Tier
StorCycle Storage Lifecycle Management software helps organizations understand their data and migrate that data to the right tier of storage for cost-effective data access and preservation, as well as to optionally encrypt data to provide additional Attack-Hardened security.

The latest StorCycle release (3.6) provides:

Ransomware Snapshots: Integrates directly with BlackPearl snapshot feature. When enabled, StorCycle initiates snapshots of BlackPearl volumes at the end of migrate jobs, and optionally maintains immutable read-only status of volumes, providing Attack-Hardened protection from network intrusions, such as ransomware attacks, by reducing accessible attack vectors.
BlackPearl Bucket Adoption: Allows users to configure an existing BlackPearl object storage system as a storage location, and automatically adopt the contents of the bucket into the StorCycle database. The objects remain in the bucket, but are available for StorCycle restorations. Bucket adoption enables existing BlackPearl customers to integrate StorCycle into their workflows for easy access to object or tape archive.

Spectra Stack Tape Library – Simple, Scalable, Affordable Tape Storage
The library is designed to be easily installed, expanded and managed, starting as a 6U library with 1 to 6 LTO tape drives and 10 to 80 LTO tape slots. The tape library is scalable from 10 to 560 tape slots and 1 to 42 tape drives.

Stack Tape Library provides:

New Attack-Hardened features that include a cold partition that locks tapes so that they cannot be overwritten or loaded into a drive if ransomware takes control of the tape library itself
Traditional air gap protection as data can be stored on tape and away from the network
Now shipping with LTO-9 drives and media

Vail and BlackPearl Platform enhancements will be available in November 2021. StorCycle 3.6 will be available in October 2021. Spectra Stack enhancements are currently available. Spectra’s full line of tape libraries will be adopting Attack-Hardened features in early 2022.

Comments

This announcement is significant as it addresses 2 important needs for users especially around data management that represents an important part of IT budget.

The first one is related to the ransomware initiative the company has launched following the attack it had last year. The firm is transparent on this and explained how it finally recovered from this deep impact and share the lessons learned from it. It took several weeks to restore a normal level without any ransom paid thanks to its expertise, products and procedures. This initiative named Attack Hardened triggered the addition of anti-ransomware features in its products line with tape libraries, BlackPearl, StorCycle and the newcomer Vail:

Tape libraries: enable a special media isolation zone within the library to prevent any threat propagation materializing a sort of air gap. Full air gap is of course also possible. Transparent encryption at-rest of all media. And finally the capability to make the media WORM.
BlackPearl: improves RPO with scheduled snapshots written to immutable storage plus the backup software integration first with Commvault and Veeam. Expects a few more soon. Plus the remote-copy/replication to increase data redundancy and reduce surface for threats. And addition of security capability with multi-factor authentication.
StorCycle: Add frozen data technique with snapshots stored on BlackPearl NAS, disk, tape and cloud, finally flexible on that target support. Consider data mover technique to move/copy data to the right support but also to limit the life duration on some media and create some "disconnected" zone or domain. Also encryption for data.
Vail: Security with encryption at various levels (data, metadata), add locking and versioning, multi-site and Glacier like capability to offer an air gap flavor.

The second major item with this announcement is represented by Vail, a distributed multi-cloud software that groups, pools and unifies data wherever they reside, within on-premises data centers or in the cloud. It confirms that data are completely dispersed stored on various generations, models and brands in multiple sites finally whatever is the size of the enterprise as well.

Vail provides a multi-access capability based on S3 API thanks to multiple points of presence layered on a global namespace. Data are included in a single pool of storage that ease data placement and manipulation with dynamic workflows to optimize data location and associated level of protection. At the same time, on-premises data are accumulated at a rapid pace for decades but cloud also has started to address some specific workloads. Therefore this dual world is a reality inviting vendors to develop solutions that span and embrace this multi data presence. The product doesn't force users and admin to centralize data to enable some specific services. Data are used and accessed where they reside, without any transformation, again via the de-facto standard S3. Thus the adoption and associated deployment are very easy and transparent for users.

But you can also imagine some workflows between locations based on their attributes and particularities. Think about the creation of objects in one place, a data acquisition farm with ton of sensors for instance, a bucket policy which copies these captured data to AWS to trigger a specific rendering process, pattern matching, whatever... that itself generates an output, and then distributes to multiple sites via also an other bucket policy. As Vail finally glues or couples all sites each with its storage and processing capabilities the limit is only mind and imagination.

Among several key features such the global namespace capability, Vail also adds multi-copy and sync across storage entities, on-premises and cloud, that is bi-directional that bring data where it needs to be consumed, processed or computed for some specific use cases. The result is a solution priced at an affordable level that invites users to reconsider their cloud-based Glacier choice with a new alternative based on tape libraries deployed in their data centers. This last point reminds the recent Quantum announcement on this on-premises Glacier offering as well.

Some of the Vail capabilities remind what other solutions offer on the market especially on the global namespace aspect such StrongBox, Hammerspace, Komprise or even Point Software and Systems illustrating a strong direction for the industry.

Beyond adding security features to BlackPearl and StorCycle, Spectra Logic enriches BlackPearl with the support of the standard S3 API in addition of Spectra DS3. Note that the spin-down or zero-watt disk model is fully supported being an active component of a global data center energy optimization strategy. StorCycle receives a new integration with the capability to consider BlackPearl Bucket within StorCycle and to manipulate these objects for restorations.

On the tape library side, LTO-9 drives and media are now available on the Stack Tape Library. With this new media, initialization phase could introduce some latency when it's absolutely not expected. To solve that potential issue and above all not regular or consistent process time, Spectra shipped only pre-optimized LTO-9 cartridges and thus minimizes that time making all tapes ready to use as soon as they're inserted in the library.

Spectra extension to its already known data management portfolio with anti-ransomware features and multi-cloud capabilities with Vail marks a major evolution in the company trajectory. As a player who stores and protects exabytes of data worldwide with more than 20,000 installations, the firm is well positioned to understand users needs and demands and to convert these into new approaches and models. Vail seems to be the result of a clear listening of market needs.