IDATS Launches Maestro Legacy Data Suite to Restore Legacy Tape Data Without the Original hardware or software

Summary:

• New platform enables enterprises to retire legacy backup infrastructure, eliminate proprietary software licensing fees, and access tape archives on-demand
• Key applications include moving data to the cloud without mass tape migration, feeding AI models and targeted eDiscovery

IDATS launched the Maestro Legacy Data Suite, a new solution for searching and restoring data from legacy backup tapes without the original hardware or software.Maestro enables organisations to retire ageing servers, tape libraries and backup applications while retaining access to historical archives.

Many enterprises keep entire legacy backup environments running for one reason: to access historical tapes. This requires ageing servers, drives and libraries, alongside the licences, maintenance contracts and specialist skills needed to support them.

Migrating entire archives to the cloud can create a different set of costs. Storage, processing and egress charges can make large-scale migrations expensive, particularly for data that organisations may rarely need to retrieve. Rising storage costs and stricter retention requirements make both approaches increasingly difficult to justify.

Maestro provides an alternative. It reads existing backup catalogues, converts them into open formats and restores only the data an organisation needs. Data can be recovered directly to modern storage without using the original software or rebuilding the original backup environment. Where specialist tape drives are required, IDATS can provide them.

Key capabilities

• Unified Archive Cataloging: Combines catalogs across multiple legacy backup platforms into a single searchable interface. Records can be enriched with Active Directory metadata, Exchange EDB details, custodian information, tape-tracking logs, and encryption key
• Non-Disruptive Tape Scanning: Scan-only mode rebuilds catalogs, identifies orphaned tapes, extracts file listings and voice-call indexes, and detects early signs of tape degradation to prevent data loss
• Targeted eDiscovery: Granular search capabilities allow legal and compliance teams to pinpoint relevant files before extraction, reducing document review volumes by up to 60% in eDiscovery projects
• Direct-to-Destination Restoration: Restores individual files or entire tapes directly to disk, VTL, network shares, AWS S3, Azure Blob storage, or Veeam (and other) native formats
• Complex Media Support: Supports complex stream types including multiplexed and multithreaded streams, NDMP, voice recording formats, and encryption applied at software, tape-drive, or library levels

Maestro supports all commercially available legacy backup platforms including Veritas NetBackup and Backup Exec, IBM Spectrum Protect (TSM), Dell NetWorker, Commvault and Arcserve.

Selected data can also feed data lakes, analytics environments and AI platforms. This allows organizations to turn decades of retained information into accessible data that teams can search, analyze and reuse.

“Many organizations are holding petabytes of tape data that they cannot easily search or access,” said Darren Phillips, technical director, IDATS. “Until now, the choices have often been to keep obsolete infrastructure running or migrate everything into another storage platform. Maestro gives organisations another option. They can retire the legacy environment; keep the tapes they already own and restore and use only the data they actually need.”

Maestro is available as a service delivered by IDATS, SaaS, through remote access or for deployment on premises meaning data sovereignty issues can be eliminated.