Data storage spotlight AN ALTERNATIVE TO LTO
Media companies of any size have the challenge of increasing file sizes as resolutions become higher and, due to the nature of their work, need to maintain a comprehensive and accessible
archive. These archives are mostly at rest with just occasional use. Therefore, archiving on tapes and disks that become unreadable or inaccessible over time is a high-risk strategy, and more practical storage systems such as online spinning-disk storage, or disk in cloud is expensive.
A
rchive owners want the lowest lifetime of cost of ownership with extended media life, but without recurring costs and with low power consumption as befits data that’s primarily at
rest. They don’t want vendor lock-in or licenses or expensive egress costs, but do want total content security. They want fast access to archive content without breaking the bank and, in today’s age of sustainability, want the lowest carbon footprint achievable. Disk Archive Corporation is a company that specialises in high-
availability, high-security enterprise-class archives and content libraries designed for the film, television, and legal evidence market. The company’s ALTO systems are designed to be scalable, flexible, and reliable, and meet the high-performance requirements of today’s media-related organisations. DAC’s ALTO systems use a replication-based architecture that
supports on-premise installations as well as data centre systems, and geographically distributed setups with vault storage for air-gap security and disaster recovery. ALTO systems also employ data file replication technology, which creates multiple non-segmented replicas on removable media, to bolster the safety of users’ files. ALTO can be used in combination with other solutions. For
example, a hybrid system combining ALTO for fast on-premises access with cloud tape tiers for disaster recovery gives a good combination of performance, cost and security, with ‘de-clouding’ being easy and affordable. Ultimately, ALTO is a scalable cold storage solution for
infrequently-accessed media storage optimised for the needs of television and film production, preservation and archival, but equally applicable for any structured or unstructured data. ALTO replaces outdated data tape libraries and replaces or complements optical or cloud offerings in open,
standards-based systems with low lifetime cost of ownership, high performance and good environmental credentials. The ALTO Principle, MAID-III writes non-segmented data files
with user-selectable replication. The disk drives are individually managed in software, allowing disks to be spun-up and spun-down on read /write demand, reducing power consumption and extending disk lifetime for cost-effective, long-term storage with a low carbon footprint. The replication technique offers user-configurable security, removable media and flexibility to create hybrid archives,
distributed archives and vault storage. Replication factor 2 is the default replication for an Archive with
two non-segmented copies of every file created and stored on different disks for protection. The two disks may be in the same enclosure, where media preservation is the primary concern, or in separate enclosures for additional resilience and high-availability. Individual disks can be opened for forensic file recovery off the disks
44 | January/February 2024 Alan Hoggarth of Disk Archive presenting an ALTO solution.
with a standard Windows, Mac or Linux computer. Replication factor 3 offers a third copy of your media for even
higher security. This can apply to all of the Archive or selectively to content of strategic value. ALTO systems can be distributed between different premises or data centres to create a disaster recovery archive, or the third replica may be in a vault for ‘Airgap Security’. ALTO uses commodity disk drives that can be purchased locally
from suppliers or online and added in batches to provide additional capacity when needed as an operating expense. Buying disks locally in batches allows users to take advantage of falling disk prices and increasing disk capacities over time, with no vendor lock-in. The ALTO product family includes the ALTO-SX compact
archive, a single ALTO-SX system enclosure, which holds up to 24 disk drives, or 576 TB using 24TB disks in a 4U unit. It has a short enclosure and front-loading disks for applications where rack depth is limited, and rack aisles are narrow. It’s scalable with up to 4 x 24 slot expansions to create a 2.8 PB node. The larger ALTO-III System Enclosure which holds up to 60 disk
drives and is based on Linux so, as with the ALTO-SX, no Windows licences are required. With expansions available, the system is scalable to 200 PB and over. ALTO Manager software provides monitoring and control of the
disks in ALTO units. It drives the LCD on the front of an ALTO III head and provides a web server, making this monitoring and control functionality available for local and remote system administrators. ALTOCare Support provides two years inclusive hardware,
software and online operational support with every ALTO system. There are optional unlimited renewals, but no mandatory technology refresh or media replacement schedules.
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