centera

Centera is a family of fixed-content storage appliances developed by EMC Corporation for long-term archival of data. It is designed to store unchanging content, such as emails, documents, and database exports, in a way that emphasizes immutability and regulatory compliance rather than frequent updates or high-velocity access.

A defining feature of Centera is content-addressed storage (CAS). Each stored object is addressed by a content-derived identifier rather than a traditional file path, which helps ensure data integrity and tamper resistance. Centera supports write-once, read-many semantics and policy-enforced retention so that data remains unaltered for the required period. Metadata associated with each object enables searchable retrieval and supports compliance workflows.

In operation, Centera clusters scale by adding storage components to handle growing archives. The system focuses on preserving data integrity through checksums and verification processes, with options for replication and disaster recovery to protect against data loss. Access to Centera is provided through EMC-supplied APIs, allowing applications to store and retrieve content by its content ID, while presenting a stable archival layer for end users and downstream systems.

Typical use cases include corporate email archives, financial records, healthcare documents, and other regulated fixed-content archives where long-term preservation and immutability are essential. While Centera was widely deployed in the 2000s and 2010s, it represents an early approach to enterprise object storage designed specifically for archival and compliance workloads.

See also: content-addressed storage, write-once, read-many, archival storage, Dell EMC Centera.