A new file sharing, storage and backup solution aims to provide the flexibility and scalability to support the needs of a variety of office environments, including workgroups and remote and distributed operations.
Office Shared Storage, from Infortrend, provides centralized file management and real-time file sharing with full data protection. It allows collaborators to instantly share files through shared folders, store large amounts of data and back up files. Files are stored centrally in a shared, unified repository, they are updated in real time.
The shared storage also supports the multi-version snapshot function and off-site and cloud data backup to guarantee that data can be restored from mistaken deletion or accidents, Infortrend noted.
The file management solution, which works in concert with the company's EonStor GS, GSe and GSe Pro shared media and commercial network-attached storage (NAS), also claims high scalability and availability. According to the company, it can increase storage space to the petabyte level by expanding to more than 800 hard disks.
Compared with higher-end enterprise- and midmarket-focused shared storage solutions, Infortrend provides more flexibility to scale up, down and out as well as different connectivity for blocks beyond usual iSCSI or NAS file, NFS and Windows SMB, said Greg Schulz, senior advisory analyst at consultancy StorageIO.
"With this type of scalability and flexibility, the solution can adapt to your environment instead of you having to adapt to what a product can do," he said. "That means being able to deploy the Infortrend solution from small-form-factor shared storage that replaces USB direct-attached or entry-level NAS, up to larger scale-out storage across different department workloads, as well as for backup data protection."
The most obvious use is for real-time file sharing. In concert with EonStor, companies can create centralized storage spaces for file sharing via shared folders. IT managers can set up different access rights for different users, increasing security. This system can help reduce complexity and the chance of files, documents, videos, drawings and other items being lost during moves, Schulz said. It can also reduce the chance that multiple copies of the same file remain in the system, clogging up backups and tying up storage space.
Users may also choose to use the solution as a personal external drive, replacing easy-to-lose USB external hard drives. Finally, it can be used as a data backup solution. Infortrend suggests using the EonView interface to set up a dedicated backup folder, schedule and restoration link for regular data backup.
