NEO Agility Archive Appliance and LTFS Solution - FAQ's

BackupWorks.com is excited about the release of the Overland Storage NEO Agility Archive Appliance and LTFS Solution.  We've put together an informative Q&A for you here about the NEO Agility Archive Appliance and feel this cover a lot of the key questions you will asking us:

What is the NEO Agility?

NEO Agility is a disk-based solution that provides affordable, reliable, high-capacity data archiving capability by utilizing LTFS technology.

What is LTFS Technology?

LTFS technology provides users with the convenience of effortlessly dragging and dropping files to and from tape, just as if they were located on a standard disk volume.  Even though the archive files may be physically located on a NEO Series tape library, users have convenient access to the data since they appear in the users OS directory tree structure.

Is the NEO Agility a NAS Appliance?

Not exactly.  However, NEO Agility does allow customers to access NEO Series tape library as a NAS share, providing easy exchange of data between primary and archive storage

What are the Key Features / Benefits of NEO Agility?

NEO Agility provides the following features / benefits to end user customers:

• Provides the ability to easily store and retrieve archive data to tape, lowering the cost of storage and increasing efficiency by freeing up primary storage space
• presents large capacity files to the user as if they resided on disk, providing effortless drag and drop of files to the archive tape storage
• Delivers up to 15PB of near-line storage capacity, and unlimited offline capacity
• Presents data stored on tape as a NAS share, enabling easy sharing of data with other users on the network
• Optimized for CIFS/SMB and FTP file transfers, NEO Agility integrates easily with the most common network protocols
• Provides interoperability in Windows, Linux and MAC environments for effortless integration into a variety of networking environments
• Writes to LTO cartridges in either LTFS or TAR formats, avoiding proprietary formats and preventing expensive vendor lock-in
• Compatible with LTO WORM cartridges, providing optimal archive storage for environments faced with regulatory compliance issues

Does the File System Present itself as an SMB mount to the end user?

It can.  If you are accessing the file system from outside the appliance, the data is presented to the users as CIFS/SMB

Why are all NEO Agility (48, 80 and 160) all 1U form factor?

The Server platform that hosts the NEO Agility technology is based on a 1U Server

How would I know which NEO Agility configuration to choose?

Each NEO Agility configuration is designed to meet specific data archive capacity requirements, as well as specific performance requirements.  The following Chart highlights the specifications for each NEO Agility model, as well as the NEO Series tape library that is designed to be sold with NEO Agility:

How do I use NEO Agility for capacity requirements large than the specs listed above?

We will offer a capacity upgrade license to the NEO Agility appliance that will enable the full storage capacity of a NEOxl80 and / or NEO 8000e

What is the warranty coverage?

The NEO Agility server portion of the solution is covered by a 1 year silver-level warranty, providing the end user with NBD onsite coverage of FRU's and advanced replacement of CRU's.  The Overland-unique software portion of the NEO Agility is covered by 1 year of telephone support.  1-year and 3-year warranty uplifts are available, as are uplifts to Gold and Platinum warranty coverage.

Does the warranty of the NEO Agility Archive Appliance have to match the warranty of the NEO Tape Library to which it is connected?

No.  While the units are complimentary, we want to provide you with the ultimate flexibility in using both solutions.  Therefore while we recommend matching the type and term of warranty for convenience, it's not required.

Can NEO Agility be used with non-Overland Libraries?

At this time, NEO Agility is designed to support the features associated with NEOs T48, NEOxl80 and NEO 8000e tape libraries.

Are NEO Libraries purchased separately from the NEO Agility Archive Appliance?

Yes.  The NEO Agility archive appliance is simply the server and software platform that provides the LTFS and archive portion of the solution.  For the data to be physically stored on tape, a NEO tape library is required in conjunction with the NEO Agility Appliance.

If I already have a NEO Tape Library, can I add the NEO Agility Archive Appliance to my solution?

Yes.  NEO Agility is compatible with NEOs T48, NEOxl80 and NEO 8000e so as long as you have one of these libraries and want to add the archive solution, you can do so.

Why would I want a NEO Agility vs. a disk-to-tape solution or straight disk / NAS solution?

The NEO Agility Appliance is optimized for the archiving and sharing large, numerous data sets which consume extreme amounts of storage capacity.  Compared to a disk-only solution, NEO Agility provides a much more cost effective, higher capacity, more reliable, more energy efficient data storage process that allows easy storage, retrieval and sharing of that data.  In the case of a disk-to-tape solution, NEO Agility simplifies the transfer of data back and forth to disk.  Unlike a disk-to-tape solution, NEO Agility is agnostic to the environment in which it is being utilized, improving compatibility and interchange amongst systems and eliminating costly vendor lock-in.

For further information, call your BackupWorks.com Account rep today at 866 801 2944