Do we have to give access to production systems?

No. Most of the work is document review and structured interviews with the people who run the estate. Configuration exports, inventory reports and existing architecture diagrams cover the majority of it. Where a specific measurement matters, such as actual restore throughput, we agree in writing what will be run, by whom and in which window before anything touches a live system.

What if the assessment says we should do nothing?

Then that is the report. It happens most often where a recent platform is sound but the retention policy behind it is vague, in which case the fix is documentation and testing rather than hardware. Reporting that honestly is worth more to us than a project you regret. Where a change is genuinely warranted, the same report explains why in terms you can put in a business case.

Can the findings be used with suppliers other than Aban Smart?

Yes. The document describes your requirement, your gaps and the architecture options, not a locked-in product list. Some clients use it to run a competitive process, and that is a reasonable use of it. If you then want the design built, request configuration and pricing, and the scoping work already done carries straight across.

Before the bill of materials

Find out what your current archive would actually do on a bad day, before you buy anything to improve it.

A structured review of retained data, enforcement, recovery targets and the estate you already run, written up as findings rather than a proposal.

Request an Assessment Speak to a Storage Architect

The assessment can conclude that your existing platform is adequate. That outcome is reported plainly, and it happens.

What the assessment covers

Five areas, examined against what is installed rather than against a reference architecture.

Retention authority. Who decided each class of data is kept, for how long, and where that decision is recorded. Most estates have three or four genuine retention classes wearing a dozen different labels. Consolidating them usually shrinks the problem before any technology is discussed. This connects directly to regulatory data retention.

Enforcement. Whether the retention period is enforced by media that cannot be rewritten, by appliance firmware, by an object policy that a privileged account can lift, or by a convention that nobody has tested. The four models behave very differently under a compromised administrator account, as immutable and WORM storage sets out.

Recoverability. Not whether backups run, but what the last full restore rehearsal demonstrated, how the catalogue is protected, and whether the recovery time anyone has promised the business is arithmetically achievable from the media it lives on.

Readability over time. Media age, drive generation compatibility, format dependence and whether checksums recorded at ingest are ever compared against a re-read. An archive nobody has read from in five years is an assumption, not a copy.

Exposure in the current estate. Single points of failure, out-of-support components, media that is no longer manufactured, and index copies that share a fate domain with the data they describe.

Information that speeds up scoping

You do not need this ready to make the request. It is what the conversation converges on, and having any of it early shortens the engagement.

What we ask about	Why it changes the design
Usable capacity in the archive today	Sets the migration volume, which is often the largest single cost driver in a modernisation
Annual growth, and whether it is linear	A flat 20% and a step change from a new imaging modality produce different tier choices
Daily ingest rate and its peak shape	Determines cache sizing and how many drives a library needs, which the average figure hides
Retention classes and their durations	Compliance-mode enforcement is irreversible, so an over-long default becomes a purchase commitment
Recovery time and recovery point targets, per class	Distinguishes what belongs on disk from what can sit on removable media
Existing storage, backup software and library hardware	Decides whether a new tier can sit behind unchanged applications or whether interfaces have to change
Volume and format of data to be migrated	Metadata, permissions and stub references migrate separately from file content, covered in archive migration
Site constraints: rack space, power, cooling, access	An optical library is a physical object with a floor loading and a service clearance
Data residency and access control expectations	Determines whether an on-premises endpoint is required or a hybrid target is acceptable

Approximate answers are fine. A stated estimate that turns out to be wrong is more useful than a blank, because it tells us which assumption to test first.

What you receive, and what this is not

The output is a written findings document. It sets out the gaps we found and their consequences, one or more architecture options with the trade-offs stated rather than hidden, an indication of what would have to be migrated, and a scope definition precise enough to take into configuration and pricing without reopening the requirement.

This is a scoped engagement agreed in advance, not an open-ended consulting arrangement and not a free pre-sales visit dressed up. Scope, access and deliverables are written down before it starts.

It is also bounded. We assess storage, retention and recovery architecture. We do not audit your security operations, review contracts, or give a legal opinion on whether a retention period satisfies a particular regulation. Where a finding depends on legal interpretation, we flag it and leave it with your counsel. Start the conversation through the contact form or request the assessment directly.

Frequently asked questions

A site survey establishes whether a chosen product fits your rack, power and network. It starts from a product. An assessment starts from what you retain and what you have promised the business about getting it back, then asks whether any product is required at all. The two can both happen, in that order, but they answer different questions and only one of them can conclude that you should buy nothing.