News

posted on 08 July 2008 10:38

A new archiving product from BridgeHead Software automatically moves older, infrequently-accessed SharePoint items to cheaper archive media and cuts down the SharePoint backup burden.

Tony Cotterill, Bridgehead Software's president and CEO, said: “As much as 70 per cent of the content of a typical SharePoint system can consist of rarely accessed older items, including early versions of documents that quickly pile up as teams of users collaborate on document creation. Our BH ShareStore archiving software automatically moves inactive SharePoint data from expensive primary storage systems to a range of secondary media where it is managed and kept accessible to end users.”

By cutting data volumes held on Tier 1 storage, BH ShareStore helps cut storage hardware spend while permitting faster backups. It also means restores can be completed more quickly in the event of disaster.

Jamie Clifton, Business Development Director, EDA for BridgeHead Software, said: “Unlike other SharePoint archiving systems, ShareStore is specifically designed to optimise backup. When static data is moved away from the primary store, the system’s advanced media management features let it manage multiple copies in multiple locations at the same time. This data doesn’t then need to be repeatedly backed up or replicated. In effect we’ve created a self protecting archive. The user now only needs to backup the smaller volume of active data that remains on primary storage.” 

The product does not restrict users to specific secondary media to create the archive and the ShareStore archive can be held on any combination of media including low cost disk, CAS (content-addressable storage), and off-line media.

End users can see and access the archived data within SharePoint as if it were still present in the primary system, the whole process being transparent to them.

The tagging information and metadata related to SharePoint documents is preserved and can be used to create detailed management policies within ShareStore to control archived data in line with compliance, corporate governance or operational requirements. This includes setting rules on issues such as data retention periods, protection, encryption and access rights and final deletion at end of life.

ShareStore can be purchased as a point solution to manage SharePoint archiving, or as part of BridgeHead Software’s modular enterprise data management offering which allows it to be part of a larger archive that includes a wide range of unstructured data from other applications.

Cotterill said: “By using ShareStore as part of a bigger one stop archiving solution, you start to enjoy a real critical mass in terms of the data in the archive and hence its effect on minimizing storage hardware costs and optimizing backup and restore. By using a centralised archive, rather than multiple separate archives for individual data categories or business areas, you also benefit from management efficiencies by streamlining and simplifying processes, cutting complexity and duplication and improving control.”

The product is available immediately and its pricing is based on the number of SharePoint users. So for a typical implementation of 1,000 users, the price would average at approximately $20/£10 per user.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}