Hostway Enterprise Managed Storage

At Hostway we understand that data storage, business continuity and data archiving are vital to you. Organisations of all types are under increasing pressure to find cost-effective storage solutions that can cope with not just today's, but tomorrow's data storage requirements.

The Storage Dilemma

The factors behind the increased data storage burden are multiple. Business compliance directives from the UK government, the EU and the US (e.g. Sarbanes Oxley compliance) mean that legally significant data must now be kept for much longer. New Data Protection regulations and an increase in what data companies must keep on file internally now also accounts for some of the increase. If we were to add email, VOIP and other digital records to the mix - it's clear there is significant demand amongst IT Managers for flexible, fully redundant enterprise level storage, at affordable prices.

Outsourcing Your Primary Storage

Traditionally, managing a hosted primary storage network 'in-house' has meant a very significant capital outlay in both hardware and infratructure terms, not to mention the internal skill sets that need to be paid for. New developments such as Storage-On-Demand are opening up new possibilities. More and more businesses are turning to Hostway because we have the right partners, and the right experience to deliver high QoS Storage, but with major cost savings.

Hostway Managed Storage

Drawing on new solutions from industry leaders like Pillar Data Systems™, as well as other primary storage suppliers such as EMC, Netapps, and Onstor, our engineers can design and implement solutions based on gigabit Ethernet NAS or SAN, fully meshed and redundant fibre networks, or clustered solutions that allow for storage virtualisation, bit level replication and mirroring – all within the solution, or also across different sites. In short, there's not much we can't handle.

Complete Flexibility

Businesses grow and mature of course and it's likely that your storage needs will also increase. So our primary On-Demand solution from Pillar features a per gigabyte pricing model, allowing you to only buy what you need, as well as the ability to vary the performance level of your stored data (between high performance, medium and Low/Archive) thus accomodating further cost savings or continually changing capacity requirements.

Hostway's Managed Storage solutions are built on relationships with the best, most cost-effective storage providers in the industry:

Hosted Primary Storage Partner

Pillar™ were launched with a simple, yet powerful idea in mind - build a successful enterprise-class utility storage company by delivering value that others had promised, but never produced. The Axiom™ Storage Solution unites SAN and NAS with multiple tiers of storage on a single platform for the first time. Quite simply we believe it delivers the most cost-effective, highly-available networked storage solution on the market. On-Demand What makes the Pillar storage solution unique is that it allows businesses to purchase SAN/NAS storage capacity on a gigabyte per month basis, instead of having to make the significant investment required to gain the benefits of a best-of-breed, SAN/NAS system in-house. Tiered Storage Pillar's Axiom™ Storage technology effectively tiers disks into 3 Access levels, and users can move data from one tier to another whenever they wish, without additional penalties. Dual-Site Replication Hostway's implementation includes dual-site Pillar facilities in London and Hannover which allow for off-site replication of data between the two IDC's.

Cross-Platform Storage Technologies

Disaster Recovery For clients who have existing infrastructure or require Disaster Recovery replication from existing equipment, Hostway also has extensive experience of working with other storage manufacturers. Capacity Maximisation We can create heterogeneous (or cross platform) Disaster Recovery systems utilising our clients existing onsite equipment to create clustered or replicated environments. We can also create live, offsite archives to aid in capacity maximisation planning. Backup Backups are also a major Hostway focus and we run both virtual and physical systems in our worldwide data centres to allow for Disk to Disk, Disk to Virtual tape and also Virtual Tape to Physical tape mixed systems which allow for the highest levels of simplicity, performance and security for our clients.

Iscsi and Fibre SAN Networking

Brocade Hostway are at the forefront of Fibre SAN networks and working with Brocade have deployed a 4GB dual fibre meshed network which expands on an edge based approach for each client using the Silkworm range of products to ensure speed, data integrity and absolute security. The SAN networks are also integrated over Iscsi to allow for bit level replication to our other worldwide facilities to create world class hot and cold disaster recovery solution utilising best of breed technologies from Microsoft, Oracle, VMWare etc.

Advanced Encryption Services

Decru Decru enable advanced encryption algorithms to be applied to live data, backup data and even offsite archive data. Wire speed and transparent data encryption ensure that all types and forms of access are strictly regulated and recorded, with a view to helping our clients become compliant with a wide range of Archiving and Privacy regulations, both current and future.

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