Automated Tiered Storage

Automated Tiered Storage is a product from Compellent. It stores information in a database in such way that information searched for more often is moved to a different tier, producing faster search results.

Overview

The collection and sorting of data has become a very important business tool for many companies; information about customers, products, sales, and research are all needed to help a company stay competitive. In conjunction with the growing amounts of information, data management systems have become more popular and in some cases a necessity. One of these growing data management technologies is called Automated Tiered Storage.

The concept behind Automated Tiered Storage is that the information is classified using much more efficient and cheaper methods than a simple data base. What makes Automated Tiered Storage cheaper and faster is the way the information is stored. Information which is part of more searches, or is used more frequently are automatically moved to a different "tier" than information that is seldom searched. This helps produce faster search results and can reduce the costs of storing data.Fact|date=March 2008

The costs of Automated Tiered Storage can be lower than regular databases because of where the data is stored. The tier that holds the most searched information and recent queries would have the fastest rotation speed and a smaller amount of disk space, however as you move down the tiers the rotation speed becomes lower and the storage space becomes greater. This eliminates having a massive database all with the fastest rotation speed possible.

Costs of storing data can be reduced using an automated tiered storage because less time is needed to manage the information, search results return quicker, and most importantly you don’t need to organize the information into tiers; it’s done automatically. Tiers can range from mainframes and servers to hard copies of data (disks or data tapes) depending on the importance and usage rate of the information.

References

* Russ Taddiken – Senior Storage Architect (2006). Automating Data Movement Between Storage Tiers. Retrieved from the UW Records Management Web site: http://www.compellent.com/

See also

* Hierarchical storage management
* Tiered storage

External links

* http://www.compellent.com/products/software/ats.aspx