Siegen. PoINT Software & Systems GmbH has been developing and selling storage solutions for storage and archival of data on standard optical media like CD/DVD and Blu-ray Discs (BD) for decades. The new patent pending method now enables solutions like PoINT Archiver and PoINT Storage Manager to integrate also BD production systems (BD autoloaders) as “near-line“ archive and storage device with random access to media. This way, another device class is available to secure data by means of optical media besides common jukeboxes. By using removable media in automated systems an energy efficient storage and long term archival is realised different to pure hard disk systems. This meets all requirements as regards ensuring Green IT by an ecological and economical reasonable master plan.

 BD production systems as continuous “near-line“ archive
Commonly, BD production systems are used for the automated production of media including label printing. The method PoINT applied for patent allows that such devices can now be used as “near-line” archive with random access. Software solutions like PoINT Storage Manager administer the contents of every single medium and load the requested medium to a drive when needed. In case a production system with 50 BD media is used, one gets an archive volume of about 2.5 TB. Such a solution is especially qualified for the additional archival of important data stored on primary hard disks.
Media can also be removed from the system and stored offline. To ensure that a requested medium is found fast, a distinct label is printed on each medium. Thanks to the UDF file format, which is independent of operating systems and which is supported by PoINT, the media can even be read outside the particular PoINT solution.

Green-IT by a software concept
One characteristic of all PoINT products is to consequently support the unique features of a technology. This way, the particular technologies are integrated optimally and by the combination of various technologies the different strengths can be combined into a more powerful overall system. Even PoINT Jukebox Manager uses hard disk space as fast cache and optical media for the storage of files.
PoINT Archiver even goes one step ahead as it currently supports all storage technologies (hard disk, tape, optical media) and device classes (single drive, production system, autoloader, jukeboxes, appliances). The combination of different technologies (e.g. by hard disk and LTO autoloader) creates a tiered, file based archiving solution which can also be complemented by a cost and energy efficient BD production system as archive device.
This concept is brought to perfection by PoINT Storage Manager, which virtualizes the storage hardware, i.e. making the hardware useable independent of the implemented technology or device class, and granting access via the file system as universal interface. Additionally, existing storage systems can be integrated and the data stored thereon can be migrated to new technologies in case of need. Moreover, agents allow back-up of files on servers or databases like MS SQL, MySQL or Oracle. Thanks to the new method, which was filed for a patent by PoINT, even BD production systems can be used for automated back-up and long-term archival on BD, in addition to single drives and jukeboxes. This way, Green-IT becomes an affordable and practicable reality.