Below is our recent interview with Betsy Doughty, Vice President of Marketing at Spectra Logic:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Spectra Logic?
A: Spectra Logic, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, develops data storage and data management solutions that solve the problem of digital preservation for organizations dealing with exponential data growth. Dedicated solely to storage innovation for 40 years, Spectra enables affordable, multi-decade data storage and access by creating new methods of managing information in all forms of storage—including archive, backup, cold storage, private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud.
Q: Can you give us insights into your products?
A: Spectra Logic designs and sells a broad offering of solutions that manage and protect the digital assets of thousands of organizations across the globe, preserving those assets for as long as required.
The newest solution from Spectra, StorCycle™ Storage Management Software, was designed from the ground up for data-driven organizations needing a modern storage management workflow. StorCycle automatically scans inactive files stored on the Primary Tier of storage and migrates them to a lower cost tier of storage, called the Perpetual Tier, which can include any combination of cloud storage, object storage disk, network attached storage (NAS) and object storage tape. Moreover, StorCycle software can migrate entire data sets associated with a specific project or with a specific directory off of expensive primary storage. When a project is completed, StorCycle can migrate it from the Primary Tier to the Perpetual Tier via the project archive function. Called the Project Archive method, it is useful for data such as machine-generated data, completed experiment output, videos, etc.
Spectra BlackPearl platform, including its Spectra® BlackPearl® Converged Storage System, solves the problem of costly and complex approaches to digital preservation. BlackPearl combines file and object-based interfaces with multiple storage targets. It reduces the need for expensive third-party data movers by integrating the Spectra S3 interface with a range of certified clients and simple file movers.
The BlackPearl NAS, a secondary storage disk system, allows users to choose the level of protection most suited to their workflows, including primary storage offload, data staging, backup and archiving. Spectra’s BlackPearl® Object Storage Disk Solution is a capacity-intensive system that is easy to manage and scales as needed into petabytes. The object-based disk solution allows organizations to manage their storage economically. BlackPearl Object Storage Disk, powered by the BlackPearl Converged Storage System, delivers a low total cost of ownership (TCO), easily and quickly adapting to changing workflows and business needs.
Spectra’s extensive Tape Library Family offers a highly flexible hardware architecture and a revolutionary management interface (BlueScale), helping customers achieve the ultimate in data preservation. Spectra’s portfolio of tape solutions meets the needs of global organizations—from midsize establishments to large Fortune 50 corporations and government entities. Trusted for decades by many of the world’s most recognized organizations, Spectra libraries protect and preserve a vast amount of the world’s data. For instance, the Spectra TFinity ExaScale Tape Library can expand up to 44 frames in a single library. TFinity offers many advantages: component redundancy, high-performance dual robotics, industry-leading storage density, extreme scalability, energy efficiency, ease of management, integrated encryption and enduring reliability and service. The Spectra Stack Tape Library is built with maximum flexibility, and scales from 10 to 560 tape slots, capable of storing up to 16.7 petabytes of compressed data.
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Q: Which types of businesses can use your solutions?
A: Many of the world’s most well-established and data-hungry organizations across a variety of industries including healthcare, government, finance, media and entertainment and high-performance computing, have adopted Spectra Logic’s solutions to backup, archive, access and protect their valuable data quickly and reliably for the long term.
Q: Does Spectra Logic sell through the Channel?
A: Yes. The Spectra Logic Channel Program has more than 800 worldwide channel partners. Spectra’s attention to these partnerships and dedicated business relationships have helped drive the success of our solutions in markets worldwide. Spectra Logic understands the channel’s essential role in helping customers build modern data storage infrastructures and Spectra continues to forge new strategic relations that expand its technology partnerships, distribution and value added reseller (VAR) opportunities worldwide.
Q: What’s wrong with the traditional data storage models? Why do we need a new model?
A: As data has changed as well as the way in which data is generated, a new method to manage and store data has emerged. Traditional storage paradigms have focused too much on the storage “tier” without offering awareness into the data that is being stored on any given tier. The new two-tier model modernizes organizational workflows. A Primary Tier holds all active (hot) business-critical information, and a second, Perpetual Tier holds all inactive (cold) data, including backup, archive, disaster recovery and distribution copies.
Q: How exactly does StorCycle work?
A: Most organizations have large amounts of data that are growing exponentially and are critical to their businesses. Typically, most of this data is stored on an expensive Primary Tier of storage. However, up to 80 percent of this data is inactive, costing both space and money, and should be moved to more cost-effective storage. Spectra’s StorCycle software does just that.
StorCycle allows organizations to create a new Perpetual Tier of storage, reducing the overall cost of storing data by up to 70 percent, while giving users full access to their data. StorCycle can be implemented as standalone software using public cloud storage or existing network-attached storage, or combined with Spectra storage hardware to create a complete storage solution.
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Q: Can you give us any hints as to what else we might expect from the industry this year?
A: 2020 will see broad adoption of a two-tier storage architecture. The traditional four-tiered storage pyramid comprising of flash (SAS then SATA), disk and tape has run its course. Instead, 2020 will see wider implementation of a more streamlined two-tier storage architecture that defines data by its usage rather than the underlying storage medium. Traditionally the two-tier model has been used by high-performance computing, but recent software innovations are making it readily available for all market segments, such as media and entertainment and oil and gas.
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