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Content addressable storage (CAS) system locates data by an array-assigned
address, rather than by physical address or directory. Here the stored
information is retrieved based on its content and not by its storage location.
It is typically used for high-speed storage and retrieval of fixed content, such
as documents stored for compliance with government regulations. In fact, CAS is
the permanent-storage analogue to content-addressable memory.
EMC's Centera, released in 2002, was the earliest entrant in the market and
the company claims that it is still the market leader in terms of CAS-capable
units. There are other players such as IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems and Hitachi who
are bullish on CAS. The smaller storage players are yet to begin their innings
in this segment. And the scenario would become upbeat only with the entry of
more storage players.
Adoption of CAS
Even though CAS system has been there for a while, it hasn't yet seen
full-fledged growth and its adoption is still at a nascent stage in India. Said
Subram Natarajan, Senior Consultant-IBM STG, Asia-Pacific, “Organizations are
not governed by any external regulations for data retention. As a result, all
data retention practices stem from internal self-governance, thereby taking a
secondary priority over other IT priorities. Secondly, setting up CAS involves
investment over and above the existing IT infrastructure. Because the cost per
megabyte is on a reducing trend, many organizations tend to implement data
retention practices on their existing storage devices.”
However, the vendors are optimistic about the current scenario and believe
that the adoption of this technology is fast catching up.
Why CAS?
There are two types of storage-content addressed and location addressed.
According to Rajesh Janey, VP-Enterprise Business, India and SAARC, EMC, what
makes CAS special is that, “CAS is one of the key trends that the information
infrastructure industry is witnessing nowadays. When businesses looks for fixed
content, CAS is the only system, which can provide it. CAS provides a digital
fingerprint to a stored piece of data. The fingerprint (also known as an ID or
logical address) ensures that it is the same exact piece of data that was saved
and no duplicates are ever stored. It's a radical departure from the traditional
file system used in most storage systems.”
He cited that CAS not only assures content integrity for long-term storage,
but also guarantees that all data will remain unchanged over time.
According to C Ravishankar, CTO, Choice Solutions, “CAS is the best option
for the long time archival especially for the compliance hit industries. The
write once read multiple times (WORM) model makes it more special where the data
could be written once and read many times due to, which the data could be
maintained for a long time.” He also added that CAS could work in tandem with
any software irrespective of its platform.
Another aspect that drives enterprises to adopt CAS is the conformance to
compliance.
Deploying CAS
There are multiple reasons for an enterprise to go for CAS, such as
information security, authenticity and speed of access, in addition to adhering
to compliance regulations. In HP, CAS is known as 'Integrated Archive Platform'.
According to Sadashivam Ranganathan, Business Head-Storage, HP, “In a business
angle CAS would be an archive platform. Anybody who wants to turn information
into an advantage or anybody, who would like to manage information in a
strategic way, needs to utilize CAS. The specialty of this archival platform is
that it could be used across any industry irrespective of the verticals.”
If looked at a micro perspective, government and telecom would definitely be
the first hand customers for these kinds of archival solutions. The media,
including television and print is also said to be one of the verticals, where
CAS would be the ideal solution for data archival and retrieval. “When numerous
terabytes of data are archived, the retrieval becomes a difficult task, as in
location addressed storage it would take more time. However, the retrieval of
data through CAS can happen within a short duration,” said Ravishankar.
He felt that only larger enterprises can afford to use CAS due to its
expensive nature and huge management requirements. Ranganathan of HP too felt
that CAS is only confined to larger organizations.
Shortcomings in CAS
The industry rejects the opinion that CAS has few shortcomings and that has
been the reason for the delay in adoption. They completely attribute the delay
to time and the cost involved. Another factor that is delaying the adoption is
the lack of competition in this segment. “From a technology perspective there
are not much shortcomings in CAS. From an organization perspective there are
quiet a bit, as we are talking about a complete revamp here. There is a complete
process happening in the customer's end, where the addressablity becomes an
issue. There needs to be a maturity within the customer and also a lot of
understanding,” said Ranganathan.
Scope for partners
Ranganathan felt that partners have ample scope in providing CAS to their
customers. “From a partner perspective, partners can provide consultancy,
implementation and delivery, as still there are lots of enterprises in need of
this solution. They also need to ensure that proper skill sets are developed
besides creating awareness among the customers,” he said.
“Partners need to make their customers aware of this archival platform before
taking up the solution. Most of the time is spent in searching for the right
data. If these kinds of solutions are delivered at the right time, the
enterprises can avail maximum benefits,” he added further.
According to Natarajan, “CAS is suitable for environments where data does not
change often. This means, whenever there is a requirement for long-term storage
and infrequent access. Hence, typically system integrators can position CAS
where regulatory requirements or ong term data retention requirements are
present.” The vendors continue to leverage their existing channel partner
network to market the CAS technology and solutions.
Promising CAS
As data centers and enterprises have already started looking out for CAS to
suit their requirements, and the customization that is expected to happen for
smaller industries to utilize the benefits for CAS, the industry feels that it
is right time for SPs and SIs to take up the solution and start creating
awareness among their customers. “CAS is sure to stay on and become the next big
trend in the information storage space because of its inherent advantages. More
so because the majority of data that fall under the definition of fixed content
are highly regulated or sensitive in nature that often moves the requirements
for confidentiality and security to the forefront of the priority order.
Conformance to compliance will act as another driving force behind CAS
adoption,” said Janey.
NR SETHURAMAN
sethuramannr@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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