CAStor™ Content Storage

Features

Representing significant advancement over existing CAS architectures, CAStor is the first software-only product introduced to the market and offers the most complete set of features. If you are challenged with managing an ever-growing storage environment for content and need to ensure compliance, CAStor is ideally suited for you.

CAStor storage cluster

Architecture Features and Benefit top
  • Software-only and Hardware Agnostic
    No hardware lock-in with standard, commodity server hardware of choice; take full advantage of the price performance curve of commodity servers
  • Virtual Storage Nodes
    Run multiple, virtual CAStor nodes in a single multi-core server. Allocate individual drives to virtual nodes to create a storage cluster in a box.
  • Open-Standard Interfaces
    HTTP, CIFS, NFS, FTP, WebDAV, Mac, Linux, SNMP, and NTP
  • Single, Flat 128-bit Address Space
    Virtually unlimited address space for massive scaling and long-term archiving
  • Universally Unique Identifier (UUID)
    Unique identifier for the life of an object providing location independence and abstracting application from where it's stored.
  • Zero File System (ØFS)
    No file system overhead, minimal management/administration; no limits on quantity of files or file sizes.
  • Symmetric Architecture
    All nodes offer all functions. No bottlenecks. No access only nodes. Near-continuous operation and flexible re-configuration on-the-fly.
  • Self-Aware Cluster
    Self-managing, self-configuring and self-healing maximizes up-time and minimizes administration
  • Scale Performance
    Cluster performance improves with addition of new server nodes or nodes with greater processing power
  • Local Area Replication
    Replicate content locally to a sub-cluster with different physical or geographical characteristics
  • Wide Area Replication
    CAStor Content Router enables disaster recovery and failover to secondary site. Supports 1:1, 1:Many and Many:1 configurations
ILM/Compliance Features and Benefits top
  • Data Integrity
    Assurance that data remains unchanged with cryptographic hash; this is separate from the UUID
  • Content Integrity Seal
    Establishes authenticity of a content object and is returned to the application that requests it
  • Transparently Upgradable Hash (Patent Pending)
    Upgrade hash algorithm used to stronger algorithm when the original risks being compromised, e.g. MD5. No impact on applications or content store.
  • Object-level Retention Set retention time on a per object basis to ensure it remains available and unchanged until expiration
  • WORM-like Storage
    Once an object is written to CAStor it cannot be changed. This addresses regulatory mandates such as SEC17a4 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
  • Custom Metadata
    Applications and/or users can define metadata attributes to uniquely describe content objects
  • LifePoint Support
    Set metadata attributes for treatment of an object at specific times in its lifecycle
  • Anchor Streams
    UUID for a content object remains anchored, but content can change allowing for disk-based backup and database backups
Browser-based Management Console top
  • Browser-based Management Console
    Manage, monitor and control the entire cluster from any node through a simple browser interface
  • SNMP Support
    Monitor and manage clusters with common systems management platforms, e.g. CA Unicenter or HP OpenView
  • Syslog Server Support
    Sends alerts to a standard Syslog server for reporting/diagnosing issues and logging for audit trails
  • NTP Support
    Supports external network clock synchronization to ensure accurate time stamps to adhere to retention times
  • Network Boot
    Boot CAStor server nodes from the network to minimize administrative activity.

Learn about CAStor Content Router