XenData, new player in object storage

XenData, an established player in secondary storage with an active archive solution, joined The IT Press Tour in Madrid, Spain, organized last week. It was the opportunity to meet Philip Storey, CEO, and Mark Broadbent, CTO. The company, founded in 2001, is self-funded and also profitable.

The idea was to build an archive system coupling tape with the simplicity of disk interaction. The result is a combination of a disk array plus a tape library (TL) equipped with LTO tape drives and controlled by a Windows server directly connected to these 2 storage devices. This approach is covered with the X-Series product line available in different models.

It offers the capability to copy data from disk to tape or cloud or on any similar system via replication. The architecture is scale-up able to support multiple arrays and TLs.

The team has also identified the need to synchronize data across multi-sites. This global data view and access is represented by the cloud file gateway product and operates as a pure software play.

Beyond these 2 solutions, the company introduced the E-Series which is an object storage. In fact, it is a S3 interface on top of a X-Series. This new product iteration extends the distance to the storage entity from consumers and open key partners to leverage the platform. Each node offers 240TB of disk and can couple a total of 4 arrays for a total of 1.12PB raw. Internally, data protection relies on RAID 6 largely enough for transient data. And the beauty is the second level based on LTO tapes. This solution operates as a modern VTL and S3 interface to TL. This kind of system can be used as a new generation active archive platform but also deployed for backup. It illustrates the consolidation of secondary storage units.

XenData pricing is very compelling and it explains why the company has sold 1500+ systems as of today, meaning more than 6 instances sold per month, a pretty healthy business since the inception of the project.