StorageTek expands ILM options

Storage Technology (StorageTek) is expected to announce this week another step in its Information Lifecycle Management strategy with the introduction of hardware and software for e-mail archiving.

The Lifecycle Fixed Content Manager 100 is designed for customers that need to comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission 17a-3 and 4, which stipulate the archiving of e-mail for brokerages.

The Lifecycle Fixed Content Manager 100 is partially based on technology from start-up Permabit.

It is designed to prevent the alteration or deletion of data and will work with content management software from iLumin, Commvault and iXOS.

The product is architected with a two storage processors called access nodes connected to a pair of Gigabit Ethernet switches and then to 2-18T-bytes of ATA disk drives called storage nodes. The application communicates with the access nodes using the Network File System (NFS) over TCP/IP. Once data is collected at the access nodes, it communicates with the storage nodes using a proprietary content addressable storage protocol over TCP/IP. It also supports Microsoft's Common Internet File System (CIFS).

Each access node includes a CPU, RAM and a single disk. The storage nodes also include a CPU, RAM and six internal disks.

StorageTek plans for the Lifecycle Fixed Content Manager 100 to work with KVS and AXS-One archiving products in the first quarter of this year.

A version with 2.3T-bytes of storage is US$74,000; a mid-size 6.9T-byte version is available for US$191,000; and, a large 16.2T-byte model is US$435,000. The product will be available later this month.