A storage industry breakthrough was unveiled today after four storage vendors came together to collaborate on a common mission: to promote active archives and simplify online access to all archived data.

I’m proud to join executives from QStar, Compellent, FileTek and my own organization, Spectra Logic, in announcing the formation of the Active Archive Alliance.

Fundamental, fast moving changes in data storage and access are occurring in the archive market. As organizations increasingly store more data in archives, the challenge of retrieving that data when needed has intensified.  That’s where active archive solutions come in.  Active archive solutions resolve this predicament by turning offline archive and backups into visible, accessible extensions of online storage systems. Active archives also offload archive appropriate data from primary storage, while keeping it online and accessible.

The goal of the Active Archive Alliance is to align needed technologies and provide the education necessary to address today’s rapidly evolving requirements for storing and accessing large quantities of data quickly and affordably.  With the right combination of tape, disk and file system interfaces, vast volumes of data are just a few clicks away.

So what can you expect to see from the Active Archive Alliance and its founding members?

• Active Archive best practices and guidelines for end user education
• Additional alliance partners added including: vendors, VARs and end users
• Contributing analysts and alliance partner blog posts
• Alliance activity on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• White papers, webinars, videos and educational materials will populate ActiveArchive.com

The Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high-density tape and disk storage.

To contact the Active Archive Alliance go to www.activearchive.com/contact