Archiviazione dati da tape a cloud. Buona parte dei dati nel mondo è conservata su nastri magnetici. Ancora oggi i backup su nastro magnetico vengono utilizzati in molte organizzazioni, di solito non per l’archiviazione primaria, ma per archiviare file nel lungo periodo che non richiedono di essere consultati di frequente (“cold storage”), e come parte di una strategia di backup, continuando ad essere un’importante risorsa per conservare enormi quantità di dati.
Le ragioni della sopravvivenza di questo supporto sono molteplici, vantando una sicurezza, un’affidabilità e una convenienza economica notevoli.
E’ anche vero che un’enorme quantità delle più grandi e storiche collezioni di dati al mondo giace inattiva e inaccessibile su supporti a nastro, perché era uno dei supporti più convenienti in cui le organizzazioni potevano archiviare i documenti fin dagli anni ’70.
Dai tape al cloud
E’ possibile migrare questa enorme mole di dati all’interno di ambienti maggiormente efficienti come il cloud, che elimina inconvenienti come lentezza e possibilità di rottura del supporto di archiviazione, a favore di vantaggi come lavorabilità, scalabilità, flessibilità e annullamento del rischio di obsolescenza?
La riposta è sì: la migrazione di raccolte di dati multi-petabyte nel cloud, dove le organizzazioni possono connettersi e analizzare tutti i loro dati (legacy e attuali) in tempo reale, è una realtà, specie se coadiuvata da un’infrastruttura digitale ad alta densità di rete, con ecosistemi ricchi, situati in luoghi chiave adiacenti a tutti i principali fornitori di servizi cloud.
Un esempio viene dalla società Tape Ark, specializzata nella migrazione da nastro a cloud per i propri clienti, che così possono generare nuove conoscenze e nuovi flussi di reddito da dati storici di svariati petabyte, e dalla sua collaborazione con Equinix, l’azienda di infrastrutture digitali al mondo®, per far progredire la propria infrastruttura digitale a supporto della sua prossima fase di espansione, migliorando le prestazioni dei propri servizi di migrazione da nastro a cloud e soddisfacendo le esigenze di data sovereignty locali.
Con l’aumento dell’adozione dell’intelligenza artificiale (AI) e del machine learnign (ML), i servizi di migrazione di Tape Ark stanno aiutando i ricercatori e gli analisti di vari settori a eseguire studi di maggiore impatto, come l’identificazione delle principali malattie sulla base delle cartelle cliniche e la scoperta di diverse tendenze nella produzione agricola e nel consumo di acqua ed elettricità.
In Europa, Tape Ark sta attualmente spostando oltre 300Pb di dati nel cloud per un’organizzazione di meteorologia per condurre analisi di modellazione meteorologica.
40 Years of Dark Data on tape-media
Tape Ark Liberates via Platform Equinix. Making multi-petabyte data accessible in the cloud enables organisations to generate new insights and create new revenue streams via the power of AI and ML.
A vast amount of the world’s largest and historical data collections sit idle and inaccessible on tape media because it was one of the cost-effective places organisations could store records since the 1970’s. With advancements in digital technologies, Perth-founded and headquartered technology company, Tape Ark, which specialises in tape to cloud migration, is liberating these data collections for organisations. Once liberated, Tape Ark’s customers can generate new knowledge and new revenue streams from multi-petabytes of historical data. With operations in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Tape Ark has turned to Equinix, the world’s digital infrastructure company®, to advance its digital infrastructure to support the next phase of its expansion, improving the performance of its tape to cloud migration services and meeting local data sovereignty needs.
To migrate multi-petabyte data collections to the cloud where organisations can connect and analyse all their data (legacy and current) in real-time, requires a network-dense digital infrastructure with rich ecosystems in key locations that are adjacent to all major cloud service providers.
With a growing global footprint and a portfolio of tape migration services, Tape Ark has selected Platform Equinix® and its digital services to reduce latency and improve connectivity so its customers can virtualise their entire physical tape collection and preserve their backups in a secure, highly redundant and low-cost Virtual Tape Library.
With the rise in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) adoption, Tape Ark’s migration services are helping researchers and analysts in various industries perform more impactful studies, such as identifying major diseases based on medical records and discovering diverse trends in farming output to water and electricity consumption.
In Europe, Tape Ark is currently moving over 300Pb of data to the cloud for a meteorology organisation to conduct weather modeling analysis.
1- Tape Ark is a technology company that specialises in migrating tape-based data to the cloud. With the emergence of cloud computing, the company saw the opportunity for a new and innovative approach to data storage and management, developing a unique and scalable technology stack capable of migrating large multi-petabyte data volumes sitting underutilised on tape media to the cloud.
2- Tape Ark’s data migration services are used globally in a variety of industry sectors, including media & entertainment, healthcare & life sciences, mining & metals, education & research, the public sector and more. In the media & entertainment sector, streaming services have seen major television and movie companies rely on Tape Ark to migrate their content archives to the cloud to create new revenue streams.
3- Due to the scale and size of its data migrations, Tape Ark requires high bandwidth connectivity and low latency, and data centers in specific locations to meet local data sovereignty requirements and be close to customers. Equinix’s geographical footprint, robust digital infrastructure, physical security and connectivity to all the leading cloud service providers were all major factors behind Tape Ark’s decision to select Platform Equinix as the digital foundation of its services.
4- Currently, Tape Ark is leveraging Equinix Fabric® and Equinix Network Edge, as well as Equinix International Business Exchange® (IBX®) data center in Montreal, to connect directly to public cloud, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. With data and applications kept in the same Equinix location, there is no speed performance issue to move large volumes of data. Direct access to the digital ecosystems also enables new opportunities and new marketplaces for customer collaboration and partnerships.
5- Equinix’s global platform and interconnected ecosystems provide a unique environment for Tape Ark to architect customisable infrastructure, and where all its facilities can be managed through Platform Equinix. Tape Ark has total visibility into its operations across multiple locations accessed through a single portal. Equinix provides the flexibility, scalability and global reach Tape Ark needs to extend its services.
6- Looking ahead, in the next three to five years Tape Ark plans to deploy in more than 10 Equinix IBX facilities around the world, including Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Dublin, Mumbai, Sydney and Perth as major data ingest locations.
Guy C. Holmes, CEO & President, Tape Ark, said: “With advancements in cloud and digital technologies, Tape Ark’s customers need to migrate legacy tapes from offsite backup storage vaults to the cloud, which is essential to their future innovation and growth. Not only does it enable them to run powerful AI programs, generate new insights and create new revenue opportunities, but it also reduces the risk of exposure for organisations with sensitive data. To support our global expansion, we require access to world-class, secure hosting of our end-to-end data migration services, which is Equinix. The Equinix brand is something we want to be associated with and this collaboration provides us with facilities in all the right locations we need, with extremely fast and direct connection to all the major cloud service providers where we can move very large data collections.”
Guy Danskine, Managing Director, Equinix Australia, said: “Tape Ark is a wonderful example of Australian innovation and validates the growing demand from our customers for comprehensive global digital solutions that provides the flexibility to strategically place workloads across multiple public clouds, private clouds and on-premises. The sheer scale and size of the data migrations Tape Ark undertakes for its customers requires critical digital infrastructure, control and low latency. We’re delighted that Tape Ark has put its trust in Equinix as they enter the next phase of their business expansion, and we look forward to supporting their needs as they continue the important work of liberating data collections that can help the society discover new knowledge and develop breakthrough innovations for social good.”
Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX) is the world’s digital infrastructure company®, enabling digital leaders to harness a trusted platform to bring together and interconnect the foundational infrastructure that powers their success. Equinix enables today’s businesses to access all the right places, partners and possibilities they need to accelerate advantage. With Equinix, they can scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value.
Tape Ark is a technology company solely focused on migrating tape-based data to the cloud. The company saw an opportunity with the early emergence of cloud computing to drive an innovative approach to data storage and management, which would enable organizations to liberate their data from legacy media to the cloud en masse. As a result of Tape Ark’s groundbreaking technological approach, data sitting underutilized and inaccessible to modern cloud technologies in offsite storage warehouses can be liberated enabling organisations to efficiently store and gain instant access to their data, scale their IT operations and keep their data infrastructure up to date.
