HSM - Hierarchical Storage Migration software Linux Unix

Details & Technical Specs

Overview

As one of the first of today's increasingly popular hierarchical storage management products, HSM has perfected the solution to making the management of data affordable, easy and accommodating to your needs. HSM is a software tool that frees up disk space by automating the storage management of information through a multi-tiered system. HSM optimizes computer performance by reducing the amount of data on a disk and storing infrequently used information on lower-cost media — automatically, without any manual intervention. At the same time, HSM makes stored data easily accessible to administrators and clients: It shows on user's computers as disks that appear to have infinite storage capabilities.

The longevity of HSM has allowed the management team to refine its features to meet the requirements of a diverse customer base. Whether your company is large or small, HSM provides for a scalable architecture, making it an effective data management solution for single or multi drive network configurations. It supports both Sun's native Solaris file system as well as NFS file structures. And because HSM is transparent to all users, stored data becomes easily accessible across the enterprise to heterogeneous clients and applications. The process of storing and retrieving data from tape or optical libraries is identical to storing and retrieving data from magnetic disk. HSM proves that one of the industry's first HSM tools is still one of the best.

Why Use HSM?

Every growing business will eventually face the problem of how to manage data without managing to break the bank. As the size and number of files becomes increasingly large, network administrators must constantly address the issues of slowing computer performance and shrinking disk. Those hours of labor can become expensive and burdensome, especially for smaller companies with fewer staff members and strict budgets. HSM is not just a great way for storing lots of data cheaply (on a cost per MB basis, when compared to the cost of purchasing hard disk drives); its real value is in its ability to reduce the storage administration costs associated with larger storage requirements.

HSM software is ideal for automating a number of mundane tasks that are required in managing today's networks. Tasks such as archiving, disk grooming and managing users' accounts become a snap. Problems such as troubleshooting storage and monitoring storage integrity on the server become easy when HSM is implemented. And, HSM technology can help you on your back-ups and restores in a number of ways: It appears as a disk that never fills up and keeps track of every piece of data that it ever sees, so a network administrator can get creative in determining how HSM can solve some problems.


Features and Benefits of HSM

Features
Benefits

Transparent migration and management of infrequently accessed files (all data appears on users' computers even though it may be stored elsewhere)

Ensures continuous data availability

Provides cost-effective use of storage hardware

Provides virtual, unlimited data storage

Manages the migration from 1 to 32 file systems and/or magnetic disks

Provides seamless access to growing volumes of data

Expands as your system and network needs grow

Provides for painless system expansion

Automated, flexible rule-based policy migration manager

Provides each managed file system and/or magnetic disk its own set of highly granular rules that can be set up to match data type and usage, which means you won't have to alter your system structure

Robust, portable graphical user interface (GUI)

Provides for user-friendly push-button settings as well as visual feedback of system capacity and status

Nonproprietary file formats are used on all media, fixed or removable

Ensures all data is written in industry file formats, which means that data is never lost because of proprietary formats and can be read on any computer, even ones that don't have everStor software installed

Can group related files together on the same media

Creates quicker retrieval and is quicker to migrate information offline

Variable length fencepost

Can set the size of the "stub" that remains on the disk to meet your storage capabilities

Premigrates files (files that will be migrated next are copied on both the hard disk and the storage media)

Allows for quick deletion

Supports remote data though NFS; can migrate data across a LAN

Can have two systems doing migration remotely


Types of applications where you can use HSM

HSM can be used not only as a data migration tool, but also to provide additional functionnality and enhance certain applications. Here are some examples in which HSM can be used ...

Automatic File Archiving

The management of files is a constant problem for any business. As new files are created old files that are no longer in daily use should be archived to a secondary storage device. As the number of files exponentially expands, it becomes harder and harder to determine when a file should be archived and where archived files are located when they need to be accessed one day.

HSM offers to alleviate the problem of archiving files. Its rules-based file migration allows files to be archived according to a specific set of rules. HSM also keeps track of the files that it migrates to secondary storage so that when such a file is required it can automatically retrieve it or prompt the administrator to load the correct media into the device.


Data Library Self-Management

Almost every business now has a library of data to manage. Many companies continuously add more and more disk storage to keep up with the ever-expanding library. However, this is usually not the optimal solution, as the cost of administrating additional disk storage can quickly grow out of hand.

HSM can automatically manage a library of data saving both time and money: it frees disk storage space for new data by migrating infrequently accessed data to slower secondary media. The migrated data is kept near-line and is copied back to disk storage when a migrated file is requested. HSM provides what appears to be limitless disk storage to go with an expanding data library.


HSM

HSM or Hierarchical Storage Migration software provides policy-based management of file archiving in a way that uses storage devices economically and without the user needing to be aware of when files are being retrieved from secondary storage media. Using an HSM product, an administrator can establish rules for how different kinds of files are migrated to secondary storage devices. Once the rules are set up, the HSM software manages everything automatically.

HSM was one of the first rules-based HSM solutions on the market; its features has been refined to meet the requirements of a diverse customer base. Whether your company is large or small, HSM provides for a scalable architecture, making it an effective data management solution for single or multi drive network configurations.


 

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