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Enterprise data is exploding but most organisations are still paying premium storage prices for information they rarely access.

In this episode of Smarter Strategic Thinking, Ray Quattromini sits down with Dave Thompson from QSTAR to unpack how modern organisations can regain control of unstructured data, reduce storage costs, and build archive environments that actually scale.

QSTAR has been operating in the archive space since 1997 and works across tape, cloud, object and disk environments giving IT leaders the ability to move cold and inactive data to lower-cost tiers without disrupting access, workflows or compliance.

You’ll hear how QSTAR’s Archive Manager and Network Migrate platforms help organisations:

• Consolidate unstructured data across environments
• Tier inactive files to tape, cloud or lower-cost disk
• Support SMB, NFS and S3 access across Windows and Linux
• Maintain long-term archive integrity without third-party backup tools
• Reduce pressure on expensive NVMe and primary storage tiers
• Build scalable, policy-driven archive strategies that grow over time

The conversation also explores how AI, metadata and classification will shape the next generation of archive platforms and why organisations that don’t understand what data they own will struggle to manage future storage growth.

If your infrastructure team is battling storage sprawl, escalating costs, or long-term retention challenges, this episode gives a practical, modern blueprint for sustainable archive strategy.

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Explore archive strategies and full podcast resources:
https://www.fortunadata.com/podcast/

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Chapters

00:00 Welcome to Smarter Strategic Thinking

01:42 A career built in archive technology

03:17 What QSTAR actually does

04:24 Tape, cloud and object — how modern archives are built

05:12 SMB, NFS & S3 explained

06:08 Archive Manager & Network Migrate

07:32 Managing data sprawl & migration

09:44 Policy-driven archive environments

10:02 Capacity-based licensing model

11:20 Reducing storage cost pressure

12:26 Why QSTAR focuses on unstructured data

13:12 Archive without third-party backup tools

14:14 How archive capacity is evolving

15:45 The future: AI, metadata & classification

17:08 Governance, ownership & data responsibility

19:53 Universities, research & long-term retention

20:54 Closing remarks

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Relying on reactive backup alone is no longer enough.

In this episode of Smarter Strategic Thinking, we sit down with Panzura’s CTO to explore how their hybrid cloud file and data services platform is built for cyber resiliency, data security, governance and compliance.

We discuss how Panzura combines real-time anomaly detection based on machine learning, immutability, and detailed audit logging to detect threats quickly and recover from attacks in minutes – often without end users realising anything happened.

You’ll also hear how their distributed file system lets global teams collaborate on the same data set without creating silos, and how AI is turning “passive storage” into intelligent data services.

In this episode:

• Panzura’s role and focus going into 2026 and beyond
• Why cyber resiliency, governance and data access are still major pain points
• How their platform uses ML-based anomaly detection, immutability and audit logs
• Distributed file services for global offices and financial markets
• Moving from passive storage to intelligent, AI-driven data services
• Why backup is reactive – and what full resiliency really looks like
• Behaviour-based ransomware defence and recovery in minutes
• Intelligent infrastructure and what IT leaders should expect in the next 2–5 years

🎧 Explore more episodes: www.fortunadata.com/podcast

Or have any questions contact us today: https://www.fortunadata.com/contact-us/

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In this episode, Ray speaks with Stefan Ferrari from Vawlt, the multi-cloud storage platform built for resilience, predictable costs and zero-knowledge security.

You’ll learn how Vawlt:
• Stores data across AWS, Azure, GCP, Wasabi & Backblaze simultaneously
• Eliminates egress fees and API charges
• Protects data even if a cloud provider is breached
• Handles outages automatically — users never notice
• Enables hybrid cloud with on-prem + multi-cloud
• Deploys in under 15 minutes with no training
• Supports massive AI data lakes and analytics workloads

Perfect for IT leaders looking to reduce cloud costs, improve resilience, or modernise their storage strategy.

🎧 Listen to more episodes: https://fortunadata.com/podcast