Download Data Sheet New Storage Strategies to Meet Higher Education

Data Sheet
New Storage Strategies to Meet Higher Education Budget Challenges
The Challenge
Long-term data preservation with a limited budget
The convergence of digital learning, mobile applications, high
performance computing, and research project data is driving
organizations to address a fast growing problem – too much data
and not enough budget. Digital data is more than doubling every
two years, expanding the storage requirements to meet the evergrowing demand for real-time data access and surmounting
mandates for data retention.
Much of this data is often “fixed content;” it does not change.
This data could be anything from word documents, power
point files, audio and video assets, email messages, or even
machine-generated data. Most of these file types need to be
maintained securely and kept accessible to meet organizational
requirements, even though more than 90 percent of data may
not be accessed again after it is created.
The data storage challenge facing higher education and research
organizations is compounded by ever-restricted budgets. Since
2008, state spending on higher education has decreased by
more than 28 percent in most states, leaving internal programs
grappling for remaining budget dollars.i IT departments are no
exception.
Cloud as a solution?
It is a misconception that cloud storage can solve all of these
challenges, promising storage that is online, accessible, and
cheap. While cloud storage provides universal data access, it
is not the ideal solution when calculating the cost of long-term
storage. The total cost of cloud storage, which includes both
storing and accessing data along with monthly service fees, can
become monumental. Accessing large amounts of data from the
cloud could also be painfully slow and impact other network
operations. Most importantly, higher education organizations
cannot afford the long-term costs of storing multiple terabytes,
or even petabytes, in the cloud.
The Solution
StrongBox delivers simple storage that lowers costs
Education and research organizations can employ a simple,
secure, and scalable data storage solution to reduce the cost and
complexity of preserving vital information. StrongBox meets
these requirements and more. StrongBox is a network-attached
storage (NAS) appliance designed to cost-effectively store and
protect fixed content and unstructured data for long-term
retention. StrongBox’s built-in data protection features ensure
that data is preserved in its original state and accessible for
many years to come.
Solution Highlights:
StrongBox serves
as the most cost• Intelligent storage to reduce effective storage tier by
overall costs
combining its unique
disk-caching technology, • 95% less energy expense
which delivers speed
• Sustainable long-term archive and simplicity, with
for fixed content and tape, which provides
unstructured data
secure, inexpensive
storage. StrongBox is
• Easy to use
the perfect combination
• Portable and non-proprietary
of storage technologies
in one simple, easy-touse, file-based storage solution.
Over a ten year period, storing data with StrongBox can result
in more than an 84 percent reduction in total cost of data
ownership.ii
By deploying StrongBox, organizations can improve their overall
IT infrastructure through the simplicity of a NAS appliance
with built-in, intelligent policy management. IT departments
can enhance datacenter performance, lower costs, and deliver
an optimal end-user experience. Users can continue to access
files by simply dragging-and-dropping them with a familiar
application; no complex training is needed. Files can also be
accessed transparently by an application.
A better archive to reduce primary storage overload
When high-performance servers reach capacity, budgets don’t
leave room for expanding high-performance storage. Fixed
content and infrequently accessed files can easily be moved
to and managed in StrongBox. This frees up space on highperformance resources and helps IT administrators avoid
additional disk capacity purchases.
Simple to use and deploy - tape, reinvented
While traditional tape is cost-effective, it is complex
to maintain, difficult to use, and requires proprietary
applications to manage. StrongBox provides a file-based
solution that eliminates the traditional challenges of tape.
StrongBox is easy to deploy as a simple, plug-and-play device.
There are no proprietary applications or agents; just mount
the StrongBox as a standard file system and start writing files.
StrongBox can be configured quickly and added to existing
architectures.
Share information freely
Collaboration is an essential facet of research and scientific
progress. That’s why StrongBox makes it simple to distribute
data using network shares. If a second copy is needed, you
can export data to a portable, physical tape or use WAN
replication to transfer data to a second StrongBox appliance
at an alternate site. StrongBox uses non-proprietary LTO tape
that can be read by any LTO-enabled drive; data can always be
accessed from tape, even without the StrongBox appliance.
Green IT – building a sustainable infrastructure
For research and higher education, documents might require
indefinite preservation, making it especially important to
consider the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the life of the
data stored. Using low-energy, high-capacity tape technology,
StrongBox delivers “green IT” to reduce the environmental
cost of long-term data preservation. In fact, operational costs
for StrongBox are 95 percent less than a disk alternative and
significantly less than monthly cloud operational expenses.ii
The Bottom Line
When today’s data may mean tomorrow’s renewable
energy source, medical breakthrough, or advanced robotic
technology, organizations need a low-cost, sustainable way
to protect and scale data storage. StrongBox provides longterm protection for irreplaceable data while reducing the cost
and complexity of data preservation. For research and higher
education organizations, StrongBox reduces operational and
capital expenses, improving overall IT operations to provide
data availability for research teams, students, faculty, and the
IT team alike.
i
“Recent Deep State Higher Education Cuts May Harm Students and the
Economy for Years to Come”, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2013
ii
“Lowering long-term Archive Costs with Crossroads Systems StrongBox,”
Brad Johns Consulting, 2013
Learn more about StrongBox
at crossroads.com/strongbox.
www.crossroads.com
11000 North MoPac Expwy. Ste. 100 Austin, Texas 78759 866.289.2737
Crossroads Systems StrongBox
512.349.0300
[email protected]
Crossroads Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRDS) is a global provider of data archive solutions. Its StrongBox product is a shared storage solution purpose-built for data archiving and
preservation. StrongBox delivers online, all the time file availability with uncompromised data protection, full data mobility, non-proprietary file storage and significant cost-savings. Visit
www.crossroads.com/strongbox.
© 2013 Crossroads Systems, Inc. Crossroads, StrongBox, ReadVerify, and RVA are registered trademarks of Crossroads Systems, Inc. Crossroads Systems, ArchiveVerify, and SPHiNX are trademarks of Crossroads Systems, Inc. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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