Spectra Logic unveils StorCycle 3.3

StorCycle 3.3 comes with a range of new features including an open RESTful API that allows users to integrate StorCycle into a broader set of workflows, as well as enhancements that advance the software’s ability to migrate data to disk, tape and cloud storage, including all tiers of Amazon and Microsoft Azure.

StorCycle is designed to ensure data is stored on the right tier throughout its lifecycle for greater IT and budgetary efficiencies. Created for organisations that need lasting protection and access to data which is no longer active, but still critical to retain, StorCycle scans primary storage for inactive files and migrates them to a lower cost tier of storage, which includes any combination of cloud storage, object storage disk, network-attached storage (NAS) and object storage tape. Interoperable with Linux and Windows, StorCycle migrates data, without changing original formats, and allows users to have easy access to all data including data migrated to higher latency storage mediums like cloud ‘cold’ tiers and tape.

StorCycle 3.3 extends cloud support to Microsoft Azure, including both the standard (hot/cool) and archive tiers. Azure can be used as a storage target for migrate/store jobs, helping organisations leverage the cost-effectiveness and ease of cloud storage. This is in addition to StorCycle’s existing support for Amazon S3 standard and archive tiers. Additional support for Amazon has also been added in StorCycle 3.3 so that users can leverage StorCycle’s capability to tier data to Glacier and Deep Archive from standard tiers after a migration.

When configuring a restore job, StorCycle users now have the ability to request automatic email alerts when the restore job completes. This is especially helpful and convenient for restore jobs which may take several hours.

In addition, real time performance and progress data is now displayed when a migrate or restore job is active. Migrate/store and restore jobs will display the data rate (MB/s), the amount of data transferred thus far and the job size. Scan jobs will display the total directories and files migrated per second. Each performance chart is easily available on the respective jobs pages (migrate, restore, scan), as well as the main jobs page which will display all active jobs in StorCycle. This feature is especially useful when many large jobs are running in parallel and other organisational tasks depend on job completions. 

StorCycle also now provides full support for OpenLDAP for user authentication in addition to Active Directory. When configured, users on the LDAP domain can be given Restore User permissions where they are able to restore migrated data without administrator assistance. Configuring OpenLDAP also makes it easier for administrators to add named users to StorCycle, where they can be given additional permissions in the application, such as administrator or storage manager roles.