Tape has been a stalwart and cost effective means of backing up and archiving data for generations. But in recent years tape has started to give way to cloud based object storage solutions that are easier to interface with and recover data from using S3 and other object storage protocols.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how PoINT Archival Gateway transforms tape storage into object storage so that it may be utilised in ways similar to Amazon’s S3 Glacier object storage tier. With that we’ll go over how QuantaStor combines with PoINT Archival Gateway to deliver high performance NAS storage with auto-tiering to tape storage via the PoINT Archival Gateway. This provides a seamless solution for organisations to streamline their data management processes, and address the challenges of data archiving, and long-term storage.
An additional benefit of using QuantaStor with PoINT Archival Gateway is, that when you start running low on storage, you can create a Backup Policy to move data that is older or newer than X amount of days. Our symbolic linking feature can also be used to move the data, and leave behind symbolic links, so that it doesn’t change the path for the application or client accessing the data.
What is PoINT Archival Gateway?
PoINT Archival Gateway is a tape-based object storage solution, which can receive data via an S3 interface, and write it directly to tape. This solution offers a high-performance, and secure option for many use cases, and large data volumes.
As you can see in the diagram below that ‘Partition’ is referenced; this is a collection of one or more tape devices combined with a protection level which can be 1:1 or an erasure coding over many tape devices.
‘Repositories’ represent an S3-compatible object storage bucket which QuantaStor Backup Policies use to backup and auto-tier data to the cloud. In this case the cloud is a PoINT Repository backed by local, secure and cost effective tape storage.
PoINT’s web based user interface provides detail on data flows, used capacity and other metrics important to monitoring the overall configuration and performance of the object based tape archive.
Setting It All Up
When configuring the PoINT Archival Gateway, you’ll need to specify the endpoint address, and configure both an access and secret key. Once you have this information, you can create a cloud provider in the ‘Cloud Containers’ tab. For the purpose of the blog, I am using HTTP, but you will want to use HTTPS and your own signed certificates.
Once you’ve added your PoINT Archival Gateway to QuantaStor, you can create or import a bucket via ‘Create Cloud Storage Container’ or ‘Add/Import Cloud Storage Container’.
Now that you have your Cloud Container mounted, you can now create a backup policy, move data that is infrequently accessed out, and leave behind a symbolic link.
Here you will want to specify the source ‘Network Share’, and a ‘Policy Name’.
Here you will want to specify ‘Move Files’ for the ‘Backup Mode’, ‘Outbound Data Transfer’ for the ‘Backup Direction’, and ‘Cloud Container’ for ‘Remote Storage Export’. You will also need to specify the ‘Cloud Container’, and the ‘Create Symbolic Links’ option if you want to have clients be redirected to the PoINT Archival Gateway. The ‘Force create Symbolic Links on every trigger’ option will do as described, but if not selected, the symbolic links will be created once a day.
Here you will want to specify how often the schedule runs. I have specifically selected it to run every day at 12 AM, which will also create the symbolic links as expected as per the default of once per day. You can also specify a timer interval of 3 minutes or higher.
Here you will want to specify how many additional snapshots you wish to keep. By default, everything is set to 2. If you feel you do not have enough, you can increase the amount.
Here you will want to specify whether you want to transfer files based on their age.
Finally, you can specify some additional options, like storing files to a specific subdirectory. Once you are done, you can click ‘OK’ to save the policy.
The policy will now run as per the schedule, but you can manually trigger it using the ‘Trigger Backup Policy’ option.
Summary
If you’re looking for a way to keep your IT organisation’s cost efficiency high while improving RTOs, the combination of PoINT and QuantaStor brings some powerful tools to bear for IT organisations of all sizes. Transforming traditional tape infrastructure into an on-prem “S3 GLACIER”-like object storage tier combined with QuantaStor enables IT teams to tier to tape without limits and search for content using the S3 protocol vs slower tape based methods. For more information on PoINT and QuantaStor contact us at info@osnexus.com.
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