StorageSwitch

information without limits

Fixed content storage

BusinessTrioFixed content (reference information, persistent data, archive storage, or whichever marketing moniker you prefer) is here to stay. No matter how you see it, fixed content information and data written must always be maintained.

StorageSwitch provides tools for end users, systems integrators and storage providers to enable the storage and protection of valuable digital assets. Our enterprise class gateways and utility programs enable you to store, access and ensure the integrity of your digital assets.

 

 

Contact StorageSwitch for:

  • File System Gateways
  • Data Auditing Tools
  • Migration Utilities
  • Backup Enablers
  • Custom integrations

 

Let StorageSwitch, the experts in fixed content data systems, help you derive the most from your CAS (Content Addressable Storage).

 

Our business

Our business is to provide tools that enable storage with standard protocols and enhanced functionality specifically for fixed content. Of course this includes taking into account the special needs of compliance, data governance and archival.

File system access to information with the benefits of the storage vendors solution. We provide standards based (NFS, CIFS, HTTP, FTP, WebDAV etc) access to storage arrays from EMC, Network Appliance, HP, HDS, Caringo and others.

We offer components to the OEMS, gateway front ends to storage for users and complete solutions for an all in one approach.

Our products are available from the OEM and reseller channels.

 

A little about our philosophy

Fixed content has been treated like normal data for too long. "Just throw it in a file system - it'll be fine", or "put it on a CD - that's good enough".

It's time that the industry view fixed content data with the appropriate concerns and attitudes as proper records management demands. Our products do that today. One of our newest products, CAS Content Integrity Check for EMC Centera and Caringo CAStor is helping other vendors products live up to the requirements of the customer. This software is just the beginning of a suite of products that ensures data quality, providing protection and enabling reporting. Things that until now weren't possible.

Our lead product - the file system gateways into EMC Centera, Caringo CAStor enables enterprise class storage attributes and facilitates solid records management principles so that your fixed content can be properly managed.

We expect to be around a long time. We know our customer data will be around even longer, so let's treat it that way.

 

The StorageSwitch Advantage

StorageSwitch is different from the off the shelf solutions you typically find from other vendors.

First, we grew up in an enterprise environment. That means a number of things:

  1. It has to be available all the time.
  2. It has to be available even if the building is gone.
  3. It's got to scale.
  4. It's got to talk to the storage devices of today.
  5. In the future, I need to be able to move things around.
  6. If you have to move 'down-stream' it's easier than moving upstream, or put another way, it's easier to drive a Ferrari at 65mph, than it is to drive a Yugo at 160.

Next, we needed to understand the technologies:

  1. How are applications going to talk to storage?
  2. What protocols are needed?
  3. How do we add 'more functionality' to the storage, without changing the protocol?
  4. Storage needs more than what the protocol designers thought about 10 or 20 years ago.
  5. What can the storage device do?
  6. Where is the information technology industry moving towards?
  7. Where will the future take us? We need to be prepared for the unforeseeable.

Last, and most important we invested the time to understand the information inside the data.

This meant understanding the legal, compliance, governance, business and records management perspectives of the information. To do this we've spoken with literally hundreds of users, storage professionals, application owners, business executives, legal counsel, archivists, futurists, records managers, data center professionals, data creators, information consumers and more! Here we learned the importance of this information and the variety of needs and uses that people have for their data. No one view of the information was all encompassing to the needs of the users, managers, and guardians (present and future).

The combination of user needs and their perspectives, have formed our strong ethos of data storage, it's protection, how it's presented and it's preservation.