Cofio Software

Data Protection

Data Protection

  • Unity Breeds Power and Simplicity for Data Protection and Recovery

    AIMstor was created to unify many important Data Protection functions, and eliminate the redundant, complex and wasteful ways of legacy approaches.

    By unifying Data Protection with natural workflow management in a single user interface and application, Cofio has a created a powerful and easy to use solution that is both hardware agnostic, and driven by the ways you do business. Some of your immediate benefits when choosing AIMstor:

    • Up to 10X to 20X LAN/WAN Bandwidth improvement over legacy data protection
    • Up to 95% Capacity Reduction over legacy data protection
    • Improve IT management efficiencies by up to 200% to 400%
    • Optimize Restore times 3X to 100X with Tag-Store-Index of all data
    AIMstor

    One Application, Many Solutions

    AIMstor requires only a few short minutes to install and setup. Once you create a policy and data flow, you are ready to go. Combining Live Backup and File Version Archive, Continuous Data Protection, Deduplication, and Forensic Monitoring - would be a nightmare with any set of point products. But with AIMstor installed, you can do it in seconds.

    The fundamental way of operating AIMstor is to simply drag and drop "operations" such as Backup or Replication, into a Policy screen. Then add your Data Classification, fine tune your selections, such as Retention, Recovery Point Objectives, Triggers and other options, and save.

    Policies are real time sensitive, and can be triggered by someone changing a file, creating a file, accessing a file share, or via a schedule. Data Classifications are assigned to files the moment they are created. In this way, AIMstor guides and manages your data through any business process that different departments may impose upon it. Perhaps several departments have different policies for the same set of data, or the same file. AIMstor can help.

    AIMstor can accommodate an unlimited number of policy parameters, and then distribute them in real time. AIMstor Nodes can use new policies the moment they are distributed. The result is protection, governance and compliance of data on an entirely different level.

  • Unified Data Protection Key Features

    Live Backup

    Feature
    Benefit
    Eliminates Backup Windows
    Because data is captured as it changes there are no bulk data transfers or file system scans, and because the backup process causes no overhead to the source machine, there is no longer a requirement for a backup window.
    Eliminates Client Side Overhead
    Unlike traditional backup processes, AIMstor does not scan client or server file systems looking for changed data.
    Byte-Level Change Aware
    Only the data that is changed is transmitted. For instance, if a 10KB email is added to a 3GB PST file, then only the 10KB change to the PST file will be sent. A traditional backup process will first have to scan the whole file system looking for changes and then transmit the entire 3GB PST file.
    Real-Time Data Movement
    Trickle fed data removes need for backup window. Using real time replication technology for backup, changed data is moved instantly for backup.
    Reduced Overhead
    Live deduplicated backups vastly reduce CPU, system and network overhead on the source machine. Data is captured incrementally as it is changed or created, then transferred.
    Fast and Efficient Restore
    No layered restore process. Although data is captured byte by byte incrementally, data is indexed so a full image is available, and restored as a single stream equivalent to restoring from a full backup. This provides ultra fast restores, and a consistent point in time backup of the complete dataset.
    Browse Snapshots or
    Search for Restore
    Online full restores that are already deduplicated and can be browsed are always at hand. All data undergoes Tag-Store-Index process to make it Search-Ready, increases speed for file restore, or file version retrieval by factors of up 100X over legacy products.
    Multi-Tier Backup Deduplication
    Utilizing several backup deduplication schemes, from the point of primary data change awareness, to transfer of data, and post process, AIMstor reduces storage capacity needed many fold. See data deduplication for more information.
    Centralizes Backups
    Backup and Recovery to and from multiple nodes, laptops, desktops, file servers and application servers, for all-in-one, high performance, backup.

    CDP - Continuous Data Protection

    Feature
    Benefit
    Granular
    60 second, point in time restore capability. Typically, any data that has moved in the last few seconds will be available within the repository for restore.
    Offline CDP
    CDP recovery points are maintained during offline periods.
    Eliminates Backup Winds
    Like Backup, above.
    Eliminates Client Sideverhead
    Like Backup, above.
    Byte-Level Change Aware
    Like Backup, above.
    Real-Time Data Movement
    Like Backup, above.
    No Overhead
    Like Backup, above.
    Fast and Efficient Restore
    Like Backup, above.
    Browse for Restore
    Like Backup, above.
    Source Side Deduplication and Single Instancing
    Utilizing several deduplication schemes, from the point of primary data change awareness, to transfer of data, and repository single instancing of data, AIMstor reduces storage capacity needed many fold. Due to fast cycle retention of CDP data, the post-process dedupe algorithm is not administered, in order to maintain high performance. However, 90% of deduplication value is already done with the previous AIMstor levels of deduplication already administered to CDP data. See linkInternal('data deduplication'); ?>.
    Centralizes Backups
    Like Backup, above.

    Replication

    Feature
    Benefit
    Bandwidth Throttling
    Enables you to control the amount of bandwidth that the replication product uses.
    Reduced Network Usage
    Allows the line to be used simultaneously with other applications that may exist in the environment. Variable throttling is also supported.
    Schedule Based Throttling
    Allows users to increase bandwidth at off hours.
    Changed Byte Awareness
    Compared to volume replication solutions, which replicate complete volume blocks, AIMstor Replicator only replicates the changed bytes. If only 10 bytes are written to a file, only those 10 bytes are replicated, not an entire 1k-4k volume block.
    Synchronous Replication
    Transactions are written to the disk and simultaneously written to the destination machine. When the destination machine receives the transaction, the transaction is acknowledged and completed. This is ideal for very high availability applications, where a high bandwidth, low-latency network connection is available.
    Asynchronous Replication
    Transactions are written to disk and sent to the destination machine. Asynchronous is optimal for connections with sporadic efficiency. Transactions are held in memory only before being sent on the network.
    Asynchronous Journalled
    Transactions are written to disk and also put on a journal log file to protect against lost data in the event of system failure. Transactions from the log file are then sent to the destination machine.
    Tolerant Cache
    If the amount of data that needs to be replicated continuously outstrips available bandwidth, data is kept on the source until band width increases for off-load.
    Network Compression
    A selectable and tunable feature, forces compression of data sent across the network, decreasing network usage.
    Express Setup Wizard
    Simple replication setups can be created through the use of a setup wizard.

    Live Monitoring

    Replication activity can be monitored using the live monitoring facility. Various meters and status icons show the following:

    Feature
    Benefit
    Network outgoing queue
    How full is the network outgoing queue.
    Network incoming queue
    How much received data is still waiting to be processed.
    Network percentage utilization
    How much of the network is currently being utilized.
    Sync in progress
    Indicates that source and destination machines are synchronizing data.
    Sync required
    Indicates that source and destination machines are out of sync and require a resynchronization.

    Unified Information Architecture

    Feature
    Benefit
    Single Unified Framework
    All AIMstor components, such as Replication, are operations of the AIMstor application, so that you may benefit from the truly unified data protection and management. You simply need to "turn on" what you need.
    Common Code Base Library
    All AIMstor components (Live Backup, CDP, Track, etc.) utilize the exact same code base for all their processes.
    Unified Solution
    AIMstor is a transformational software solution that offers a large array of common code based Operations, with multiple product sets emanating from each.

    Replication Topologies

    Feature
    Benefit
    One-to-One
    One machine to another machine.
    Many-to-One
    Many machines to one machine.
    One-to-Many
    One machine to many machines.
    Symmetrical Two-way Mirroring
    Replicate directories between two machines, allowing either to master the data. Uses include simple WAN file system, and as a failover system when either machine may become the master.
    Many-to-Many
    A combination of the above topologies used together, typically with groups of systems.

    True Active Synchronization

    Feature
    Benefit
    On Demand Synchronization
    Provides flexible synchronization to establish the initial point of consistency between source and destination. Can be done at the initial setup when both source and destination are synchronized, or when desired for subsequent resynchronization.
    Active System Synchronization
    Allows synching even when the applications are up and in use.
    Granular File I/O Replication
    Highly granular replication system allows you to tightly define the type of data that is replicated through the policy classification. Unlike volume replication systems which replicate all contents on the volume, you can be more specific with what you replicate thereby saving bandwidth and storage space.