Sun Boxes Up Telco Data For EU

Sun Microsystems  today launched a new appliance designed to help telecommunications companies protect their customer data.

The Sun Secure Data Retrieval Server (SDRS) includes a Sun Fire X4500, a special server that serves data and stores up to 24 terabytes of data in 7 inches of rack space, and Live Archive software from CopperEye that helps securely retain data and preserve the business processes surrounding that data.

SDRS, the latest among a raft of data protection servers that includes IBM’s DR550, EMC’S  Centera and HDS’ Hitachi Content Archiving Platform, comes at a time when data breaches are racking the world, leaving businesses susceptible to penalties for failing to preserve information integrity.

Sun SDRS Source: Sun

While storage-array vendors typically create machines to help businesses address Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA protocols for preserving information, Sun said the SDRS is geared to help telcos meet the EU Data Retention Directive requirements for capturing and storing large volumes of compliance data, such as call detail records.

This is why Sun targeted the SRDS for telcos, which typically need to manage billions of customer transactions and preserve billions of bytes of computer data on not only their customers, but their corporate business processes.

With the performance power of the Sun Fire X4500 and the Live Archive technology, Sun argues that SRDS is better quipped than traditional storage arrays, databases and data warehousing facilities to handle data telcos propagate.

Specifically, Sun said SRDS can target specific records and retrieve them from billions of rows of structured data in seconds versus the minutes or hours competing products might take.

The machines can also provide direct access to source data and includes options to seal generated disclosures to requesting authorities. What this does is ensure the integrity of data beyond the telco’s environment to address legal and civil liberty concerns around the directive.

Sun said in a statement that it is tracking the European Telecommunications Standards Institute standards for remote data query and hand over to ensure that SDRS will meet future requirements.

The latest storage box from Sun comes as Gartner and IDC are airing first-quarter disk storage market figures. While EMC, IBM and HP remain in the top slots, IDC said Sun grew disk storage revenue 7.4 percent for Q1.

Gartner had a different finding, noting that while said Sun came in at No. 7 with a 5.1 percent market share, it’s Q1 disk storage sales plummeted 15 percent from the year-ago period.