Storing And Managing Unstructured DataStoring And Managing Unstructured Data

Estimates vary, but nobody questions the growth of unstructured data in the workplace. Documents, sounds, and video are becoming inescapable in the office and should only become more prevalent with time.

Datacenter Technologies Inc. wants to give companies the ability to archive, move, and protect unstructured data by whatever process they choose. Datacenter plans to unveil Monday its Content Director storage-management software, which can be installed on multiple storage media. The product will sell via original equipment manufacturers, which will set the price.

Content Director is designed to automatically move data between expensive hard disks, low-cost ATA disk drives, and tape drives after an IT administrator sets the conditions for movement. Customers could deploy Content Director for unstructured data that could be available on high-speed disk while it's fresh, and later move it to tape media for archiving, without an administrator's intervention.

While other content-addressable storage software only comes bundled with some hardware, Content Director is the only software in the market that's storage-agnostic. It's also the only software in the market that handles both archiving and backup, according to Brad O'Neill, an IT analyst at IT research firm Taneja Group.

Datacenter "has been lying really low," he says. "But now it can ensure access and availability of rich content."