Modern data privacy regulations and business requirements to utilize data for competitive advantage make it important for storage professionals to ensure that file data is managed in a way that controls the costs of underlying infrastructure while at the same time ensuring that data can be located quickly and made available when needed. This is no easy feat against the tide of unstructured data that is growing exponentially across distributed enterprise environments.
Aparavi – Multi-Cloud File Management
Multi-cloud data management and protection software Aparavi targets pain points associated with unstructured data growth through what it describes as “active,” policy-based data archiving and pruning, alongside customizable and granular archive search capabilities. Storage Switzerland has overviewed the platform in a previous briefing note and ChalkTalk Video.
Aparavi’s platform is software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based. It automatically archives and deletes data based on policy conditions. Data may be migrated across storage resources for optimization as business needs and storage provider pricing and functionalities change. As a result, Aparavi helps customers to be able to invest in a smaller volume of more optimized storage resources. Policy-based automation further cuts costs by reducing the management burden. Data may be archived to a range of secondary storage platforms; on-premises object stores are supported, as are cloud services from AWS, IBM, and Wasabi. To this lineup, Aparavi has just added support for Backblaze B2, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud, and support for Google Cloud is planned for later in 2019. Aparavi stores data in a published format so that it and its customers are not locked into a specific infrastructure or management platform. It also enables access to data stored outside of Aparavi via an open application programming interface (API).
To make data easily accessible and retrievable, for compliance with data privacy regulations as well as with business needs such as analytics, Aparavi enables granular classification and tagging of data as well as contextual search. Once archived, data may be pruned at file and sub-file-level granularity, based on policies.
Aparavi recently enhanced a number of its platform’s features, including:
- The ability to archive data directly from the source to the cloud, where previously an on-premises Aparavi software client was required. Now, Aparavi only stores metadata in the on-premises client for caching, as a result further reducing on-premises infrastructure requirements. Additionally, data may now be migrated in bulk across storage environments.
- Aparavi customers can now create a more customized taxonomy around key words, phrases, patterns and metadata, which are applied via a rules-based engine to refine how data is governed and to enhance searchability. To further support searchability, Aparavi has invested in a more intuitive, “Google-like” query interface.
- The Aparavi platform indexes words from documents as the data is copied. It can correlate common information, such as social security and credit card numbers, across documents, languages and a number of file types. The user may search by words, phrases, patterns or by metadata, such as file type or by pre-defined classifications. For instance, a classification for documents that contain personally identifiable information (PII) can be created, so that the enterprise can search globally for documents containing PII. Users are associated with their machine to control the data to which they have access. These search capabilities can help the enterprise to comply with eDiscovery requests and compliance requirements, such as the “right to be forgotten” via the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
StorageSwiss Take
Rapid search and access to file data, and getting stronger control over the data lifecycle, is necessary for all businesses today. Aparavi brings a purpose-built approach to archive and multi-cloud availability to unstructured data that can help to not only cut costs and boost data access, but that can also help the business to be confident that it is in compliance with data privacy regulations. Storage Switzerland notes that understanding fully what data is stored in the cloud and removing that data when it is no longer needed is a key pain point of cloud storage services; as a result, we view Aparavi’s data pruning capabilities as an important differentiator. Aparavi’s ability to automate and enhance searchability stands to provide value especially to large enterprises dealing with geographically dispersed business units and data pools. Meanwhile, Aparavi is continuing to build out a network of service provider partners that can help mid-sized enterprises get started.
Senior Analyst, Krista Macomber produces analyst commentary and contributes to a range of client deliverables including white papers, webinars and videos for Storage Switzerland. She has a decade of experience covering all things storage, data center and cloud infrastructure, including: technology and vendor portfolio developments; customer buying behavior trends; and vendor ecosystems, go-to-market positioning, and business models. Her previous experience includes leading the IT infrastructure practice of analyst firm Technology Business Research, and leading market intelligence initiatives for media company TechTarget.
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