What place does Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) still have in the world of Shredded Storage, FILESTREAM, and other "cost saving" applications for Microsoft SharePoint? First, let's make sure we're clear: Shredded storage, while a wonderful enhancement for versioning and input/output (I/O) of files, does not address new file creation or existing file tiered management. Yes, modifications to the same document will be saved as changes only, but you will still need to buffer your Microsoft SQL Server for all those new files added, those files saved under a different name, or those files brought on as part of your migration from other platforms.
RBS is still extremely relevant in the age of Shredded Storage. So long as you are paying the bills for SQL storage, and dealing with large-file I/O problems (even for version 1, before shreds can enter the picture) – your file servers are still going to play an essential role to augmenting your SharePoint storage environment.
Since AvePoint’s storage products were rolled out back in 2006, we have worked hard to address the big data challenge and help more than 10,000 customers maximize their SharePoint deployments worldwide. Below are six reasons why DocAve Storage Manager, DocAve Archiver, and DocAve Connector are the right choices for your SharePoint storage needs:
1. Our products focus on content lifecycle management. We are part of a project from the onboarding of content, to the transition between storage vendors, to the availability and performance of that content, to the end-of life and expiration of stale content (old project sites, old data sets, etc.). No other solution takes all aspects in mind when considering storage.
2. Our policies for storage are the most granular. You can define multiple rules for any scope of your deployment, including cross-farm down to individual items and versions, to target policies around exactly how your content should behave. For example, you can store records in long term archives, active collaboration content in tier 1, social content in tier 2, etc. Our solution leverages more business rules than any other to make those decisions possible.
3. Our products are renowned for integrating RBS to native hardware technologies, leveraging everything from native storage protocol (straight HTTPs for object storage, Windows File Shares, Write Once Read Many (WORM), cloud, etc.). We can also turn-around and integrate with the snapshot technology from these vendors to drive the backup and recovery policies of those BLOB stores.
4. Our solution is the only to coordinate the backup and recovery of BLOBs and SQL Databases – a common limitation and sticking point of organizations choosing not to deploy RBS today. We not only coordinate from a backup and recovery perspective – but also for disaster recovery (DR) purposes as well, supporting the management of orphaned BLOBs AND pointers/stubs.
5. We allow you to expand your story to not just simply RBS, but a complete file system management portfolio to allow you to tackle and target unmanaged and unstructured data in file shares today.
6. Our technology is award-winning and proven, with case studies around RBS from a wide variety of sectors and geographies.
For more on this subject, stay tuned for our new white paper on SharePoint Shredded Storage in the coming weeks!
John Hodges is Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at AvePoint, focusing on developing compliance solutions that address modern data privacy, classification, and data protection needs for organizations worldwide. Since joining AvePoint in 2008, John has worked directly with the company’s product management and research & development teams to cultivate creative ideas and bridge the gap between sales and technology – providing a practical target for innovation and a focused message for sales and marketing. John has been actively engaged in the SharePoint community for several years, working with many Fortune 500 companies to drive sustainable adoption of Microsoft technology and optimize SharePoint’s larger purpose-built implementations. John’s insights and opinions on modern Information Technology can be found in various industry publications, as well as throughout this numerous speaking sessions in webinars and at events worldwide.
