Aparavi Unveils Data Archival Platform Working Across Cloud Providers, Hybrid IT Environments

Cloud newcomer Aparavi is giving business customers greater mobility between their disparate cloud vendors and premises-based environments. Now, Aparavi is supporting more cloud platforms and is rolling out more features for the archival of unstructured data.

The channel-friendly startup on Tuesday revealed the general availability of Active Archive. The updated platform can work across more third-party cloud providers and offers brand-new data pruning and retention capabilities, according to the company.

Aparavi Active Archive supports public cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Wasabi, as well as private cloud providers Cloudian and Scality. Aparavi has added support for Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud in its latest release, and premises-based private cloud vendors Caringo.

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Santa Monica, Calif.-based Aparavi was founded in 2016 and was operating in stealth mode until October 2017. The startup today specializes in data retention between clouds, locations and platforms, as well as data archival and protection across hybrid IT environments.

Businesses are grappling with "unprecedented growth -- millions upon millions of files" of unstructured data, which is demanding new approaches to the protection, retention, and archival process, Jon Calmes, vice president of business development for Aparavi told CRN.

"Most backup scenarios weren't designed to handle this type of file load -- no one saw it coming," Calmes said. "We built our software to be multi-cloud aware, so you can use one cloud today and dynamically move to another [cloud] … without having to move it on-premises as the in-between location."

Aparavi’s Software as a Service-based Active Archive offering lets businesses slow their secondary storage growth by up to 75 percent, while retaining data more intelligently both on premises and in one or more clouds, at the same time, Calmes explained.

The Active Archive platform uses sub-file object storage and data pruning technology, which automatically removes no longer needed files based on policies that businesses can set on their data, or users can also remove files on-demand. This helps customer reduce their storage gradually, which can save businesses "significant" money, he said.

Businesses will be able to more easily search for and retrieve, manage, or delete data without needed to know exactly where, or in which cloud, their data may be, via the new Advanced Archive feature. The new platform will also help businesses stay complaint with upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements by automatically removing data labeled as "personal identity," the company said.

Aparavi does nearly all of its businesses through channel partners today, specifically targeting MSPs. These partners have been key in getting its solution out and implemented quickly for end customers, Calmes said. Partners can resell Aparavi through the company's brand, or white-label the platform.

Aparavi wants to bring on more channel partners this year, including VARs. Calmes said that the company also plans on rolling out a formalized channel program by the end of Q2.