Aparavi does more things with archives in more storage clouds

Aparavi, a startup offering cloud-enabled data management services, has released a software update to provide better insight and management of archived data and bulk data migration across clouds. It has also increased its list of supported cloud targets.

Aparavi Active Archive launched in 2018 as a SaaS-based platform to actively manage an organisation’s data – especially unstructured data – for long-term policy-based retention, either on-premises or to one or more cloud platforms. Its approach is described as cloud-active data pruning, which seeks to reduce long-term storage costs by archiving files that are no longer needed. The company was itself founded in 2016.

New features in this Active Archive update include Direct-to-cloud – the ability to archive data directly from source systems to the user’s cloud destination of choice. This minimises local storage requirements as there is no need to allocate resources for data staging.

Archive data directly from source to cloud

Aparavi claims that updated classification and tagging capabilities make it easier to identify and tag data for future retrieval purposes such as compliance, reference, or analysis, based on individual words, phrases, dates, file types, or patterns. The platform includes pre-set classifications such as “confidential” or “legal”.

The flip side of this is finding the relevant data again, and Active Archive now features a more intuitive query interface that can search on-site or across multiple clouds, using “Google-like” search patterns. Files can be searched by metadata, such as classification, tag, date, or file type. However, current file types supported only include text files, PDF, and modern Microsoft Office formats. Future updates will add images and legacy Microsoft Office formats.

Active Archive now supports more cloud platforms as storage targets, with the list covering AWS, Backblaze B2, Caringo, Cloudian, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud, Scality, and Wasabi. Meanwhile, a new bulk migration tool allows users to shift data easily from one location to another, including onto or off-premises.

Aparavi charges on a subscription basis for Active Archive, with monthly or annual plans available. The lowest tier is a 10TB plan, which costs $325 per month. A free trial is also available.