Hitachi Data Systems Federal: Next-Gen Gov't Archiving Lies In Long-Term Preservation

Hitachi Data Systems Federal revealed a new platform this month for archiving and storing valuable records in the federal sector for hundreds and even thousands of years.

Agencies must transition their records to digital formats and hold that data for five to 100 years under the presidential memorandum for managing government records issued in 2012. A select few must keep that data forever.

Reston, Va.-based Hitachi Data Systems Federal last week released a long-term data preservation solution in an effort to help agencies meet these mandates in the digital era. Company representatives said it represents the "next generation" in preservation technology. The solution, called the Hitachi digital preservation platform (HDPP), utilizes Blu-ray capabilities to reduce the total cost of ownership through lower media costs, low environmental requirements, migration-free technology and high media longevity and durability.

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"The ability to keep that data online and available is getting more and more important," Vice President of Engineering Brian Houston told CRN. "We have to take a step back and try to understand where the data growth is coming from and what the total cost would have to be in the environment to keep and sustain that data for an agency of 100 or more years. …. What we're seeing is … the cost of ownership is to the extreme."

Houston explained costs add up when every three to five years, data must be migrated to adapt to a new technology. By using the HDPP optical storage solution that uses existing Blu-ray and eventually M-DISC technology, he said the data can be stored on premise through a fiber-optic infrastructure within an agency's data center for an extended period of time. The optical media solutions ensure compatibility as data formats continue to evolve, according to a company press release, which leads to lowered costs for storage.

The National Archives and Records Administration would be an example of a government agency utilizing this technology to the fullest extent.

"It has millions of documents that are in a paper format. They’re in the process of digitizing," Houston said. "When we got to the moon for instance … they're trying to find that data and it’s just not there. The preservation was just not good enough to be able to keep it and make it available. Regulations are coming out to keep it online and make it available in a platform that will be able to sustain hurricanes or weather and so on and so forth."

Ken Manlogon, business development lead with the defense contractor and solution provider Exelis, said he often finds federal clients who need these capabilities. Manlogon is based in Nashua, N.H., with IMPACT Science and Technology, a subsidiary of Exelis, and assisted Hitachi with a third-party objective evaluation of the storage platform dating back to January 2013. He said since that time, Exelis found the platform performed tremendously well for their customers.

"There are customers we have directly engaged within the intelligence community as well as the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records, the FBI," Manlogon told CRN. "Depending on the agency, the FBI will have criminal records of interest, the intelligence community will have intelligence data. … With the growth of data analytics and the need to reach back further and further in time to do correlations …, there's a great need to go back to that data. They need to keep it around longer and longer but not spend an abundance of their data center budgets on heating and cooling."

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There will be more agencies looking to utilize these storage platforms, Manlogon said, creating more opportunity in the channel for VARs. This also can help out agencies looking to consolidate information and reduce the number of data centers they have in operation.

"[The agencies we've reached out to] are looking to consolidate and develop centralized infrastructure to help drive down data center costs and costs of essentially storing a byte of data," he said. "[Hitachi] is perfectly well suited for these infrastructure systems. We've spoken to a number of agencies who want to look at this as a foundational element for providing Archives as a Service."

Dylan Riley, director of the Office of Innovation for the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, said in a press release that his agency is looking to store and properly safeguard highly sensitive data.

’Media and IT options related to the storage and handling of that data tend to be very limited," Riley said. "Writable, optical media remains a preferred technology in many cases because of the significant longevity and durability of the media.’

In addition to alleviating pain points caused by forced data migrations, enterprise-quality optical discs like those in HDPP help agencies to safely preserve data for decades physically. The technology has proven survivability with "resistance to water, dust, electromagnetic events and storage environments that have high heat and humidity," according to the company's press release.

Houston said there are opportunities on the commercial side for this platform, especially in the medical field where hospitals are looking to house crucial data, as well as for data from financial institutions. Federal agents are starting to tap into the possibilities, too, he said.

"There are presidential speeches, for this year or 50 or 60 years ago, codes and confidential records," he said. "… There's many different facets you can build into it, and the government agencies are looking at it."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 16, 2014