Von Josef Doods
Driven by growing storage demands and the associated spiking costs, we are receiving an increasing number of inquiries from large enterprises and institutional organizations. These organizations have accumulated very large volumes of data over the years and are under pressure to archive them. Typically, they are looking for a complete integration of the archive solution into their existing storage infrastructure, user and access management systems, and a high degree of automation – both for archiving and for restore. The requirements frequently resemble those of an HSM solution.
To help efficiently identify and qualify these inquiries, and to ask the right questions from the start, we would like to provide a clearer picture of where P5 Archive stands.
What Archiware P5 Archive is – and Why
P5 was built on the core principle of platform neutrality. Data should be stored in a format that is as neutral as possible, making it accessible long-term and independently of the platform or file system on which it was originally stored.
Archiware P5 fully abstracts data from its source platform. Whether data originates from a Windows file server, a NAS, a Linux system, a Mac or an S3 bucket – inside the archive it exists as part of a unified, platform-neutral namespace. The file path is the address. Not the platform, not the server, not the user account that originally had access.
This is a deliberate architectural decision with clear advantages:
- The archive is independent of the infrastructure in which it operates.
- Platforms can change,
- Servers can be replaced,
- Operating systems can be migrated
- Archived data remains findable under the same namespace.
That is long-term data security by design.
In our understanding, an archive isolates data from the online environment and preserves it for future use, for years or even decades. Users working with this archive must understand its characteristics and how it integrates into the existing storage structure. A broad user base without the necessary knowledge and regular hands-on experience is not appropriate for this kind of system.
Differentiation 1: No Integration into User and Access Management
The consequence of platform neutrality is also the natural boundary of P5: anyone who wants to carry platform-specific access control into the archive – whether via Active Directory, LDAP, or other IAM systems – is asking to reintroduce the very platform dependency that P5 has deliberately resolved. That contradicts the core principle.
P5 is therefore not suited for environments where hundreds or thousands of users with different roles and permissions need independent access to the archive – based on the rights they hold in the online storage system. Organizations with that requirement are not looking for an archive. They are looking for an extension of their existing infrastructure.
With this being said there are ways in P5 to define user groups and give access to specific parts of the Backup and/or Archive. This has to be configured within P5 and is independent of any existing access control.
Differentiation 2: No Fully Automated Archiving Based on Access Time
The second requirement that comes up in many conversations: data should be archived automatically once it has not been accessed for a defined period of time.
This requirement runs into a fundamental technical reality: access time is not reliably available on standard file systems. A daily backup job that reads files will continuously update the access timestamp, invalidating any archiving rule that depends on it.
The only timestamp that is reliably available is the modification time. This can certainly be used in the context of incremental archiving – but it is not a valid criterion for migration, since an unmodified file may still be read and actively used by someone every day.
Archiving must therefore in most cases be driven manually, with responsibility clearly assigned to designated staff members. Without the necessary knowledge and without clear organizational accountability, archiving cannot function reliably over time.
A specific automation of P5 Archive can be configured using the watch folder feature. In this case a pre-defined watch folder is archived according to an attached schedule.
When is P5 Archive the Right Solution?
P5 works well where people make deliberate archiving decisions – in well-defined environments where archive access is handled by trained staff and archiving criteria are based on reliable attributes.
P5 Archive is the right tool when:
- Data needs to be preserved long-term and independently of any specific platform
- The environment forms a common namespace, meaning all data can be addressed unambiguously by path
- Archiving decisions are made and controlled by responsible, designated staff members
- Access to the archive is limited to a clearly defined, trained user group
What to Do When Customers Need More
If customers require fully automated integration into their existing storage and user infrastructure, only an HSM solution can meet those requirements. In that model, the vendor delivers the entire storage stack – online and archive – and controls data usage reliably through the file system itself. This enables true automatic tiering based on valid access timestamps, since the file system is under the control of the solution.
These are fundamentally different products for fundamentally different requirements – not a difference in quality, but a difference in approach and at a very different price point.
Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions or specific inquiries.
