One would expect content-addressable storage (CAS) archives to be the most energy-efficient area of data storage, because they are all about fixed-content, i.e. data that doesn’t change after it is created and is infrequently accessed. However, and quite ironically, CAS archiving has always presented a unique challenge to energy efficiency. This is because CAS archiving systems traditionally have been based upon one CAS object store and its database running across all the system disk drives, which means that a simple request for one file — or a standard diagnostic task — requires the system to spin up every single disk to get that one file.
This is not dependant on the size or power of the CAS object store and database; it is simply a limitation of traditional CAS archive architectures. With our recently released Assureon 6.0 secure archiving system, Nexsan has fundamentally solved this challenge with its virtual archive architecture. For the first time, CAS archive customers can maximize the benefit from energy-saving technology such as Nexsan’s AutoMAID.
So, how did we arrive at this virtual archive architecture? Let’s back up a minute. There is a dirty little secret of CAS archiving called object limits. CAS object stores and their databases are constructed in a way that imposes a strict object count limit on the number of files (objects) that can be stored. Because stored data can include millions of small files, such as emails, customers may reach an object limit in their archive long before they reach their storage capacity (preceding generations of Assureon negated this problem by independently scaling storage and processing nodes but, there are additional cost reduction and scaling benefits in eliminating object limits). So, the Assureon team set out to conquer that limit, and developed the virtual archive architecture as an elegant solution.
This architecture allows for the creation of virtual archives. When object limits are reached, other vendors sell you an additional expensive system because that is their only option. Assureon can simply create an additional virtual archive and add on more (inexpensive) storage as needed. That circumvents the object limit while preserving all that is great about CAS archiving –high levels of data security, integrity, longevity, etc.
The secret bonus in all this is that the virtual archive architecture also maximizes the green benefits of AutoMAID. While Assureon always included Nexsan’s AutoMAID technology, in the past, the traditional single CAS object store and database structure limited energy saving benefits. Nexsan’s new virtual archive architecture can manage data at the disk level, which means that a simple file request or diagnostic task can now spin up only the disk or disks needed, rather than the entire system, thus dramatically increasing energy savings.
This innovation also allows AutoMAID energy-saving levels to be maximized for each drive, which means that significant energy savings can be achieved since the disks can remain idle until the data on them is needed. This is a huge victory for CAS archive customers. We refer to the virtual archive architecture as “green maximizer” technology, since it allows AutoMAID to be more deeply leveraged in order to provide energy savings of up to 60 percent. By setting out to tackle one dirty little secret of CAS archiving, we wound up fixing two.
