The new version of the Plasmon UDO archive appliance allows multiple applications to use the appliance as a consolidated storage device, but maintain unique storage pools and policies, according to Plasmon. The Cambridge, U.K. vendor of archiving systems has its U.S. headquarters in Denver, Colorado.
Data for each application can be stored in separate, secure archives, and individual policies can be applied to each archive to enable IT managers to meet strict service level agreements for performance, cost, and protection, the company added last week.
The enterprise class archive appliance expands proven UDO technology to non-medical IT environments at a time when uncontrolled data growth is increasing IT complexity and driving operational costs up, according to Plasmon. By delivering compliant archival storage and data longevity with very low TCO (total cost of ownership) to the IT market, we are introducing UDO storage to users who may not have considered it as a strategy before, Plasmon said.
Plasmon’s archive appliance helps customers manage varied and complex scenarios including meeting growing IT compliance and governance requirements, according to the company. E-mail messages, for example, have different retention policies and requirements than compliance documents, the company said. The archive appliance automates placement of data on the appropriate archival pool according to policies for retention, disaster recovery and media management, Plasmon added.
The disaster recovery plan at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Hospital was based around backup tape and RAID, which were lost and never found in the debris after Hurricane Katrina, according to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based hospital. However, the hospital was able to recover all patient images from the Plasmon UDO libraries to which they had just started to migrate as an archiving solution before the hurricane hit, the hospital added. The hospital is now using the Plasmon archive appliance for long-term recoverability, it added.
The Plasmon archive appliance has eased the integration into IT environments with improved Windows and security support combined with file system interfaces, Plasmon said. UDO Guard, a first response to maintaining the privacy of data, has also been implemented to protect data in transit by providing a unique password for all media, according to Plasmon, a provider of archival storage solutions.
The appliance has few moving parts and consumes less energy for power and cooling, Plasmon said. The reduction of energy consumption has allowed Plasmon to help its customers address environmental challenges, while improving operating performance, the company added.
