ShadowFS is a data migration tool that: - Transparently migrates data from legacy storage systems to new storage without disrupting users or applications. It works instantly and is easily installed and removed. - Preserves all file metadata, permissions, and attributes during migration. Retention dates and legal holds are also maintained. - Uses filtering to only migrate needed files, reducing capacity usage and legal risk. Extensive logging and hashing allows for chain-of-custody reporting during compliance migrations. - Migrates data in parallel across systems for high performance and scalability when moving billions of files.

1. Simplified File Migrations
ShadowFS
Pain of Data Growth
Managing rapidly growing fixed content is a never ending and
escalating pain for IT organizations. The source of this pain
includes:
The storage industry through scale out clustering is addressing
the capacity issue of storage systems. Unfortunately the pain
and cost of moving legacy data into these next generation
storage devices has been left largely unaddressed.
Transition Problems
In order for an organization to run smoothly users need access
to their application data, when they want it. Degraded
performance or outage windows are classical problems IT
faces when transitioning legacy data to new storage.
The tight coupling of a file to a file system and a storage
device, is a proven model and has worked for decades. These
silos are great until the day comes when they are full or reach
the end of service dates. Then the complexity of transitioning
the data from the legacy storage system to the new one is fully
understood. Typically data is copied as a background process
and this is the easy part. Synchronizing the files as they are
updates, deleted or created during a storage transition is a
major IT headache, especially for active archives. Transferring
the permissions, preserving the file attributes, passing
retention dates, legal hold, setting WORM add additional
levels of complexity to the process.
Proven
Shadow FS was developed by DataTrust Solutions (DTS) to
solve the pain both line of business organizations and IT
experience when transitioning files from legacy to new file
system storage. Our data mover is multi-threaded and can run
across multiple worker systems in parallel. It has successfully
migrated billions of files for single applications at numerous
Financial and Healthcare organizations. The performance and
scale are impressive, but this is not what makes Shadow FS
special.
Transparent to applications / users
Works immediately, no trolling
Operates in-band or out of band
Easy installation and removal
Filters to exclude unwanted files
Copies all ACLS, permissions, meta data
Pass or adjust retention
Every file verified with crypto hashes
Chain-of-custody reports
Key Benefits • Most data out lives the storage system that hosts it
• Adhering to compliance and retention requirements
• Tight coupling of the file and the storage system
• Limited size and scalability of storage systems
• Managing CIFS ACLS and permissions

2. Works Instantly, Removed Simply
Shadow FS drops into the legacy environment and takes
over presentation of the shares and file systems of the
legacy storage system. ShadowFS has an auto-discover
feature for storage systems with large number of shares.
This coupled with the ability to import a list of
administrative sign-ins help to simplify the administrative
setup process. ShadowFS does not need to crawl the legacy
file system(s) to work. A key new feature is the ability to
maintain a file read request while simultaneously searching
for the file across all file systems in parallel. This file finder
eliminates the need to spend days or weeks crawling an
ever changing set of file systems to develop a catalogue and
enables ShadowFS to integrated into the environment and
up and running in minutes.
Transparent
Shadows FS provides a virtual file system that proxies both
the legacy storage as well as the new storage. This
preserves the application mount points and file pointers.
The Policy engine keeps all updates, deletes and new files
up to date on the new storage, thus eliminating time
consuming and painful nightly re-synchronization
processes.
The Right Data
Not all data is equal and subject to the same requirements
for retention and immutability. Shadow FS uses Policy
based filters for including or excluding data during a
transition. Filtering helps reduce capacity requirements and
legal risk from keeping unneeded data.
Retention
ShadowFS can pass retention set on one storage system to
another storage system with a different retention
mechanism. If needed retention parameters can be
adjusted on the fly during the migration process as well.
Supported retention mechanisms include: NetApp Snap
Lock, Isilon Smart Lock, and Data Domain Retention Lock.
Mirror Copy
ShadowFS not only copies the files, meta-data, extended
attributes and streams but also all time stamps, ACLS and
permissions. Alternatively you can adjust parameters in-
flight based upon policies .
Reporting and Chain-of-Custody
ShadowFS provides extensive logging and auditing
capabilities. In compliance mode every file that is
transitioned from one storage device to another is verified
using cryptographic hashes and chain-of-custody reports
are automatically generated.
For more information please contact us at:
+1 720-502-1031
info@DataTrustSolutions.com.
2015 DataTrust Solutions
In-Line Transparent Migration
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