NexSan Assureon
Archive Storage System
Assureon®, is an archive storage system that is ideal for storage optimization, regulatory and corporate compliance, and long-term archive for:
- Storage Optimization – offload primary storage to free up space for active data and reduce the size, time and costs of monthly full backups
- Regulatory & Corporate Compliance – comply with governmental regulatory requirements including HIPPA, SOX and SEC-17. Enforce company data retention, privacy and protection policies
- Long-Term Archive – store managed data for days or decades with unsurpassed integrity and protection in an easy to administer system that resides on-premise, in the cloud, or both.
FAST RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Assureon provides a strong return on investment (ROI). It can offload more expensive primary storage to free up space for active data. Assureon will reduce the amount of data in monthly full backups, saving time, personnel and money.
EASY TO MANAGE
All local and remote Assureons can be managed from a web browser within a single-pane-of-glass. The web-based GUI makes it easy to create retention rules and associate them with files and folders. Once installed onto the Windows Servers and configured, the Assureon Windows Client copies or moves files onto the Assureon, leaving a small shortcut file behind. Hyper speed restores are available, using the shortcuts.
Another way to utilize Assureon is with the Assureon Edge, an appliance that presents CIFS/NFS shares to Windows and UNIX/Linux environments. The Assureon Edge in turn stores all files on the Assureon.
All files can optionally be encrypted with AES-256. The built-in key manager ensures that all keys are safely stored in 3 locations worldwide. Industry-leading single point deletion technology permits Assureon to effectively delete all copies of a file worldwide by destroying the file’s encryption key.
Users are authenticated with Active Directory or with digital certificates to ensure they can only get to files for which they are authorized. Audit trails report on user’s activities such as file accesses and denials. Legal hold can be easily placed on any set of files, overriding their original retention periods.
EASY TO USE
Individual users do not to change how they work–archiving is transparent to them. Files and folders, though offloaded, appear to be in the same familiar locations thanks to the shortcut files that are left behind. Once archived, prior versions of files are available with the right click of the user’s mouse in Windows Explorer. A web-based GUI makes it easy to search the entire archive with role-based restrictions. All existing applications work unaltered with Assureon because there are no special APIs required.
INTEGRITY
Each time a file is saved, it is fingerprinted so its history and contents cannot be altered after the fact. This write-once, read many time (WORM) storage mechanism is part of how Assureon meets even the strictest regulatory requirements such as HIPPA, SOX and SEC17.
LONGEVITY
Two copies of all files, along with their fingerprints, are stored on separate RAID disk sets. Two Assureon systems can be replicate to each other to protect against a site failure. Files are continually verified against their fingerprint, repaired with their copies and safeguarded by RAID disk arrays, for days or decades. Native active/active replication protects against site disasters with automatic failover while delivering increased performance over active/passive systems. Assureon supports both compliant and non-compliant policies simultaneously while competitors require two systems to be purchased in order to provide both. Files can be AES-256 encrypted. The keys are stored safely at 3 sites by the integrated key management service.
CLOUD-READY
Multi-tenancy features allow service providers to offer archive as a service. This also allows large organizations to achieve strict separation of departments or projects. An on-premise Assureon can replicate to a cloud-based archive service, which is powered by Assureon.