T3 India

data security

The new Seagate Exos Corvault is a Self-Healing Block Storage System

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Seagate has pioneered several unique data storage solutions and now it has added the Exos Corvault to its portfolio of mass-capacity storage devices. The Exos Corvault is designed to streamline data management and reduce human intervention for data centre environments.

Seagate’s breakthrough storage architecture is integrated with the sixth generation VelosCT ASIC ADAPT erasure code data protection technology and the Autonomous Drive Regeneration feature. The Exos Corvault is built with the maximum-density 4U chassis which accommodates 106 drives within a rack space of 7 inches or 18cm. The Exos Corvault is designed on Seagate’s Exos 12Gb/s platform. It also offers “five nines” i.e. 99.999% helping to deliver consistently high reliability.

The system offers 14GB/s sequential read throughput, 12GB/s sequential write throughput and can be managed through a web-based GUI or command line interface (CLI) as well. Hard drives are self-encrypting, and secure file transfers are guaranteed through SFTP.

The Exos Corvault is protected against vibrational and acoustic interference, heat, and power irregularities in order to maximise drive performance. The aforementioned VelosCT chip powers the system’s dual storage controllers whereas the ADAPT technology i.e. Advanced Distributed Autonomic Protection Technology – distributes data across every drive offering advanced data protection and faster rebuilds.

Eliminating the need for a manual drive swap, the Autonomous Drive Regeneration (ADR) is a self-correcting system that renews a drive in-situ. ADR drives can be renewed, thereby reducing its environmental impact as well.

The Exos Corvault will be available globally through qualified Seagate distributors in July. For more information, please visit this page.

Guardians: a new location-sharing personal safety app, with data security promises

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Truecaller has been used widely across smartphones in India since its launch and today, is one of the most trusted Caller ID and telephone search engine platforms in India, and possibly the world, with over 270 million active users around the world (200 million in India). But now, Truecaller’s makers – the True Software Scandinavia AB –  have stepped up their game and developed a much-needed and controllable location-sharing app for personal safety: Guardians, which is a freely-available app.  

The usefulness of this app is promising for all genders, especially for women – as women’s safety still a pressing issue in India, and on the current occasion of International Women’s Day, safety and security should be one of the many essential factors that must be focussed on looking forward. Guardians’ data-security protocols and useful features are the need of the hour and do make this a desirable app.

First off, the folks at True Software mention that “Guardians will never share any personal information with any third party apps for commercial use, including our very own Truecaller app. This is our commitment to personal safety”, which is good to know and helpful, given the circumstances we find ourselves in today. Guardians needs permission to access: the user’s location, contacts, and phone permission, the latter showing the user’s phone status to the Guardians.

More so, the following are some of the essential and crucial features of the app:

  • User can select their own personal Guardians from their contact list.
  • User can choose when to stop and start sharing their location
  • User can opt to setup a permanent sharing with selected Guardian
  • “If you are just sharing your location for a particular trip, Guardians works quietly in the background”
  • Emergency Mode: Guardians will be notified about the user’s location and situation once the ‘Emergency’ button is tapped. Guardians will be able to follow user’s location. This mode will also share the user’s location with community Guardians who may be nearby, and user will be free to accept or reject their help.

The developers are trying to integrate a mode through which the local law enforcement can be notified and help the user as quick as possible as well.

“There are probably hundreds of apps on the app stores for personal safety and location sharing. But none of them work in a way where you can involve your family, friends, the community at large and the authorities. With this kind of reach, our past four years of research on women’s safety and campaigns like #ItsNokOk, we now understand this problem well. It’s now time to do something about making our cities safer for everyone”, said Alan Mamedi, CEO & Co-founder of True Software Scandiavia AB.

To download Guardians, please visit this page