Introduction:

With the advancement in technology, no doubt, the problem of data backup had been resolved up to a great extent but the problem of fast data retrieval still existed until one day, virtual tape libraries were introduced. A virtual tape library is a collection of hard disk drives to provide a huge amount of storage for backing up and archiving important data. The main problem with ordinary VTLs was that they were very costly and not every company could afford them especially, the startups. To resolve this issue, StarWind has introduced StarWind Virtual Tape Library, which eliminates the need of purchasing costly backup devices.

Working of StarWind Virtual Tape Library:

StarWind virtual tape library appears as a regular tape to the backup software and the data is stored on it sequentially. However, at the time of retrieval, unlike the magnetic tapes, the data is read very quickly since the actual storage medium is not a tape rather it is a hard disk, which spins much faster than a regular tape. Furthermore, this stored data can also be replicated to cloud storage to avoid single point of failure. The detailed working steps of StarWind VTL are shown below:

  1. Primary Data -> StarWind VTL
  2. StarWind VTL-> Object Storage
  3. StarWind VTL-> Public Cloud
  4. Cloud # 1-> Cloud # 2

Versions of StarWind Virtual Tape Library:

StarWind virtual tape library offers the following two versions:

  • Freemium– This version is there for the system administrators who want to maintain their backup infrastructure on their own. For such a usage, StarWind provides this free version of its VTL with unrestricted features.
  • Commercial Version– It is the paid version of StarWind VTL and is used if the data that you want to store is important and you want to receive regular updates about your device.

Types of StarWind Virtual Tape Library:

Depending upon the available features, StarWind virtual tape libraries can be divided into the following six categories:

  1. StarWind VTL Free– This type provides the features of monitoring through web UI/ thick client, cloud storage support and object storage support.
  2. StarWind VTL– This type provides the features of monitoring through web UI/ thick client, management through web UI/ thick client, RDP/ phone/ email support with 1 hour or 4 hour SLA, cloud storage support, object storage support, ability to store backups locally and flexible retention policies between on-premises, fast cloud and archival cloud.
  3. StarWind Cloud VTL for AWS and VEEAM– This type provides the features of monitoring through web UI/ thick client, management through web UI/ thick client, single point of support for backup and storage stack and cloud storage support.
  4. StarWind VTL Appliance– This type provides the features of monitoring through web UI/ thick client, management through web UI/ thick client, RDP/ phone/ email support with 1 hour or 4 hour SLA, single point of support for backup and storage stack, cloud storage support and object storage support.
  5. VEEAM Availability Suite– This type provides the features of cloud storage support and ability to store backups locally.
  6. AWS Storage Gateway– This type only provides the facility of cloud storage support.

Features of StarWind Virtual Tape Library:

  • Object Storage Support– This feature is used for the smooth management of primary backup storage, on-premises object storage and public cloud storage.
  • Scale up and Scale out– This feature is used for transparently increasing the storage capacity.
  • StarWind web based management– This feature is used for enabling system administrators to access and manage their VTL storage infrastructures while sitting at any location.
  • Deduplication and compression– This feature is used for increasing the usable storage capacity and improving the storage and retrieval performance.
  • Cloud storage support– This feature is used for two purposes. First one is that cloud provides unlimited storage for huge bulks of data. Secondly, cloud gives a very good data retrieval rate.