QoreStor data storage concepts
Data deduplication and compression
The QoreStor design uses various data-reduction technologies, including advanced deduplication algorithms, in addition to the generic and custom compression solutions that prove effective across many differing file types. Data deduplication and compression are addressed in the following areas:
- Deduplication — This technology eliminates redundant copies of data and in the process it decreases disk capacity requirements and reduces the bandwidth needed for data transfer. Deduplication can be a major asset for companies that are dealing with increasing data volumes and require a means for optimizing their data protection.
- Compression — This technology reduces the size of data that is stored, protected, and transmitted. Compression helps companies improve their backup and recovery times while helping reduce infrastructure and network resource constraints.
In general, QoreStor offers advanced deduplication and compression capabilities to reduce the time and cost associated with backing up and restoring data. Based on deduplication and compression technology, QoreStor eliminates the need to maintain multiple copies of the same data. This lets customers keep more data online longer and reduce the need for tape backup dependency.
Using its deduplication and compression technology, QoreStor can help achieve an expected data reduction ratio of 15:1. Achieving this reduction in data means that you need fewer incremental storage operations to run and it provides you with a smaller backup footprint. By removing redundant data, QoreStor deliver fast reliable backup and restore functionality, reduce media usage and power and cooling requirements, and improve your overall data protection and retention costs.
For a complete list of supported management application, refer to the QoreStor Interoperability Guide.
Encryption at rest
Data that resides on QoreStor can be encrypted. When encryption is enabled, QoreStor uses the Industry standard FIPS 140-2 compliant 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption algorithm for encrypting and decrypting user data. The content encryption key is managed by the key manager, which operates in either a Static mode or an Internal mode. In Static mode, a global, fixed key is used to encrypt all data. In internal mode, key lifecycle management is performed in which the keys are periodically rotated. The minimum key rotation period before the content encryption key can be rotated and a new key is generated is 7 days. This rotation period is user-configurable and can be specified in days. A user-defined passphrase is used to generate a pass phrase key, which is used to encrypt the content encryption keys. It is mandatory to define a passphrase to enable encryption. The system supports up to a limit of 1023 different content encryption keys.
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NOTE: Due to export regulations, the encryption at rest feature is not available in certain markets, and, therefore, may not be available in your locale. |
Streams and connections
This topic describes the differences between data streams and application connections.
Streams refer to the number of files written at the same time to QoreStor. QoreStor tracks the number of files being written and assembles the data into 4–MB chunks before processing that section of the data. If the stream count is exceeded, the data is processed out of order and overall deduplication savings can be affected.
Connections are created by applications; and, within a single connection, there can be multiple streams depending on the application and the number backup jobs running in parallel over that single connection.