User Guide

Issue January 2008
CentricStor
Virtual Tape Appliance
Intelligent Data Protection
Pages 4
CentricStor is the first virtual tape solution that provides intelligent data protection by storing all enterprise backup
data autonomously on disk or on tape. This unique Dual Target storage solution exploits the best of disk and tape in a
seamless manner thus making tape fit for Information Lifecycle Management (ILM).
Virtual tape for the Dynamic Data Center
CentricStor is the first virtual tape solution that provides
intelligent data protection by storing all enterprise backup
data autonomously on disk or on tape. This unique Dual
Target storage solution exploits the best of disk and tape in
a seamless manner. CentricStor shortens backup windows
with the performance of disk to a minimum and fulfils all
recovery time objectives for each business critical
environment. Thus making tape fit for Information Lifecycle
Management (ILM), enterprises data protection can be
flexible aligned at different Service Level Agreements
(SLA).
CentricStor offers superior connectivity with True Tape
Virtualization (TTV) which supports the widest range of
mainframes, open systems, NAS devices and industry-
leading backup applications in the industry. CentricStor is
also ideal for Service Providers as True Tape Virtualization
(TTV) is the basis for Thin Provisioning. CentricStor hides
the complexity of backup storage devices from all servers
and offers virtual tapes and virtual tape drives to
applications without allocating physical tapes or drives in
an inflexible way. Even the space in the disk cache is not
assigned in a fixed way, allowing the most efficient
provisioning of resources. Thin Provisioning allows space
to be easily allocated to servers, on a just-enough and just-
in-time basis.
Key Features Benefits
 CentricStor makes tape fit for ILM
(Information Lifecycle Management)
 Dual Target unifies disk and tape storage
 Backup windows are minimized
 Data Compression and Deduplication
*)
 Alignment at different Service Level Agreements (SLA)
 True Tape Virtualization (TTV)  Superior connectivity
 Thin Provisioning of storage resources
 Consolidation of physical backup storage devices
 Outstanding TCO reductions
 CentricStor Grid Architecture (CGA)  Unmatched scalability
 Unmatched disaster resilience
 Non-disruptive upgrades
 Live Monitoring and Health Check
*) The new CentricStor Version 4 is the base for future deduplication