Quantum STORAGECARE GUARDIAN SECURITY WHITE PAPER User Manual

StorageCare™ Guardian Security

StorageCare™ Guardian Security

WHITE PAPER

StorageCare™ Guardian Security

Notice

This White Paper may contain proprietary information protected by copyright. Information in this White Paper is subject to
change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Quantum. Although using sources deemed to
be reliable, Quantum assumes no liability for any inaccuracies that may be contained in this White Paper.

Quantum makes no commitment to update or keep current this information in this White Paper, and reserves the right to
make changes to or discontinue this White Paper and/or products without notice.

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems, for any purpose other than the
purchaser’s personal use, without the express written permission of Quantum.

This paper is not intended as legal advice on the regulations driving compliance. Quantum recommends that customers seek
qualified expert advice to ensure certifiable compliance.

©2006 Quantum Corporation. All rights reserved. Quantum, the Quantum logo, DLT, DLTtape and the DLTtape logo are
registered trademarks of Quantum Corporation, registered in the U.S., and other countries. The DLT logo, Backup. Recovery.
Archive. It’s What We Do., DLTSage, Dynamic Powerdown, FastSense, FlexLink, GoVault, MediaShield, Optyon, Pocket-sized.
Well-armored, SiteCare, SmartVerify, StorageCare, SiteCare, Super DLTtape, and SuperLoader are trademarks of Quantum.
LTO and Ultrium are trademarks of HP, IBM and Quantum in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective companies. Specifications are subject to change without notice.

2

Purpose of this Document

Network and information security is a primary concern for
today’s IT professionals. This document outlines the security
features of StorageCare Guardian, Quantum’s proactive
remote support solution. As you will see, StorageCare
Guardian is a comprehensive solution that adds great value to
your Quantum hardware purchase, while preserving the
security of your critical information assets.

StorageCare™ Guardian Security

2. Quantum Back­End Servers

StorageCare Guardian Overview

StorageCare Guardian is a remote monitoring and diagnostic
solution that enables Quantum to proactively monitor the
health of Quantum systems over a secure Internet connection.
It also allows Quantum to use intelligent diagnostics data to
remotely service the equipment if issues arise. With
StorageCare Guardian, Quantum customers can benefit from
highly reliable backups and faster resolution time.

StorageCare Guardian’s proactive monitoring and analysis
capabilities allow error conditions to be discovered
immediately to help prevent outages or failures. As soon as a
problem occurs or is impending, Quantum support or a
Quantum Authorized Service Provider is immediately notified
via e-mail. This allows proactive diagnosis of the issue. If part
replacements are necessary, the appropriate parts are
identified and can accompany the service engineer upon
arrival, saving the customer from the inconvenience of
multiple site visits. This proactive monitoring and alerting
capability greatly increases the overall reliability of the
Quantum product.

StorageCare Guardian allows for the time interval to be
compressed between when the problem occurs and when the
problem is discovered. Additionally, the amount of time is
shortened between when a support case is opened and when
the issue is resolved. StorageCare Guardian’s remote support
capabilities can even avoid some on-site visits altogether,
cutting downtime to a minimum.

StorageCare
Guardian Agent

1. Customer Site

diagram above), where a suite of applications provide access
to the real-time representation of the device at the customer
site. The back-end applications allow Quantum support and
Quantum Authorized Service Providers to:

• View real-time device status

• View system configuration

• Gather diagnostic data (event logs, error logs)

• On customer approval, connect directly to the web management
and/or telnet management interface of the device

StorageCare Guardian does much more than display raw
information collected from the Quantum device at the
customer site; it also allows for intelligent rules and parsing
routines to be applied to the collected data. For instance, a
rule can be created to trigger an alarm when a drive on a
DX100 fails, if the voltage on a PX502 power supply falls out
of limits, or if the temperature sensor of a PX720 reaches a
maximum threshold. Collected drive logs and TapeAlert
events can be parsed for indicators of a bad tape drive or
media cartridge. This additional level of intelligence and
analytic capability is one of the most powerful elements of
Quantum’s StorageCare Guardian solution.

StorageCare Guardian Architecture

The StorageCare Guardian system is comprised of two
components: the Guardian agent software that runs on a
Windows, Solaris or Linux server at the customer site, and the
Quantum enterprise servers and applications that provide
access to the information provided by the agents.

The StorageCare Guardian agent software at the customer site
(#1 in the diagram above) communicates with the Quantum
devices at the customer site on a regular basis, checking the
status of key data elements that provide a picture of the
health of the devices. Additionally, the agent periodically
communicates with the Quantum back-end servers (#2 in the

System Requirements

The simple requirements for
the server where the
StorageCare Guardian
agent will be installed are
as follows:

• Microsoft Windows 2000,
Windows 2003 Server,
Windows XP, Sun Solaris
8, Solaris 9 or Red Hat
Enterprise Linux version 3
or 4 operating system

3