PDFTechnical guide
Date not verifiedTiered Storage White Paper
White paper on tiered-storage principles for data lifecycle management.
- Vendor:
- QStar
- Date:
- Date not verified
- Format:
- Size:
- 307 KB
Layers, not a product list
An archive is four layers that get bought separately and have to work together.
Software decides policy, appliances enforce it, removable media survives the decade, disk absorbs the traffic. Each layer is chosen on its own merits.
This section is called Technologies rather than Products because Aban Smart integrates these components, it does not manufacture them.
Vendors sell boxes. Architectures are built from layers, and the layer a component belongs to matters more than whose badge is on the front. A policy engine and a piece of media can both be described as "archive storage" while doing entirely unrelated jobs, and confusing the two is how estates end up with enforcement in a place that cannot enforce anything. The pages below are organised by layer. Each covers what that layer does, where it fails, and which of the three manufacturers we work with supplies it.
Four layers, one architecture
- Software layer. Policy, cataloguing, tiering, media tracking and retention logic. See archive management software.
- Appliance layer. Packaged enforcement presenting NFS, CIFS or S3 to applications that should not have to know what is behind them. See WORM storage appliances.
- Removable media layer. Optical and tape, where physical write-once behaviour and offline custody actually live. See optical archive systems and tape and LTO systems.
- Disk and object layer. The tier that absorbs ingest, holds the working set and serves recalls at speed. See archive storage systems.
The manufacturers behind these layers, QStar, INCOM/StorEasy and DISC, are described on the partners page.
Choosing a tier is choosing which trade-off you accept.
Choosing a tier by access pattern
Cost per terabyte is the wrong first question. Access pattern is the right one, because it decides whether a recall is measured in milliseconds or minutes.
| Access pattern | Sensible tier |
|---|---|
| Read frequently, latency visible to users | Disk or object |
| Read occasionally, delay of seconds to minutes tolerable | Nearline library, media loaded on demand |
| Read almost never, must be intact and unaltered when it is | Written removable media, a copy of it held offline |
Most designs use all three, with software moving data between them on rules rather than on someone's judgement. Once the tiers are settled, configuration and pricing turns them into a bill of materials.
Explore technologies
Archive Management Software
QStar archive software presents SMB, NFS and S3 in front of tape, optical, disk, object storage and cloud, and keeps one path valid while the bytes move between them.
Learn moreWORM Storage Appliances
INCOM StorEasy appliances take files over SMB, NFS or S3, attach a retention term at write time, and refuse removal until that term runs out. Each refusal is logged.
Learn moreOptical Archive Systems
Optical archive libraries suit moderate volumes held under long mandated retention, where the evidential argument matters more than throughput. They suit very little else.
Learn moreTape & LTO Systems
Tape remains the lowest cost per terabyte for very large offline archives. Planning one properly means planning the drive refresh, not just the capacity.
Learn moreArchive Storage Systems
Disk and object archive systems sit between primary storage and cold media. The design question is rarely how many terabytes. It is whether applications reach the data through a filesystem path or an S3 bucket.
Learn moreTechnology Partners
QStar writes the archive software. INCOM builds the appliances and storage systems, some of them branded HIT. DISC makes the optical libraries and write-once media. Nobody else is in the stack.
Learn moreRelated resources
Manufacturer documentation relevant to this page. Availability, specifications, and configurations are subject to verification.
Frequently asked questions
Because we do not build any of it. Aban Smart designs, supplies, integrates and supports components made by others, and the honest label for that is technology selection rather than a product range. It also reflects how the work is done. Most engagements combine components from more than one layer, and the value is in whether they hold together.
Related pages
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