Features - Storage Innovations:

StorageTek REDEFINES VIRTUALIZATION FOR OPEN SYSTEMS STORAGE

Virtual is reality. Before a thousand CIOs, IT, data center and backup managers, StorageTek previewed the standard by which all efforts at virtualization in the open systems market will be measured.

At FORUM, its annual customer conference, StorageTek provided a sneak peek at its Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) Open solution which delivers superior reliability and performance as well as simplified and enhanced data backup, recovery and protection. Customers who rely on StorageTek for their virtual tape management in the mainframe computing environment can now also look to StorageTek to simplify their backup environment, help reduce overall hardware costs and increase the reliability of their data protection in open systems.

"Companies continue to struggle to find ways to reduce costs associated with backup and recovery while not impacting overall performance and reliability," said StorageTek chairman, CEO and president Patrick J. Martin. "Making backup and recovery simple, reliable and labor-free has always been a primary driving force for StorageTek. We are extremely proud to showcase our latest virtual tape solution and demonstrate how we've applied our virtualization experience for our open systems customers today. I believe our latest solution for open systems environments will be the standard by which all virtual tape solutions are measured now and into the future."

The VSM Open solution is a disk-based virtual tape library system optimized for open systems backup and recovery. The first version of the VSM Open solution will be available starting at approximately four terabytes minimum configuration, scaling to approximately 44TB of storage and is rated at up to 600MB per second of data throughput. It can support up to 3 million virtual tape volumes (VTV) and has a total of four Fibre Channel ports with the ability to define up to 256 virtual tape drives per port. Future versions are planned to scale to over 7GB per second throughput with buffer capacities in excess of 500TB (usable).

The VSM Open solution offers customers the following benefits:

• Simplifies backup -- Allows IT managers to share resources across many backup servers and multiple backup applications. Single point of control from a Web-based GUI and Command Line Interface (CLI) provides centralized management. And, with the VSM Open solution, there is no need for tape drive sharing software.

• Can reduce overall costs -- Combines the best of disk and tape storage for data protection. IT managers can fully utilize existing assets so that tape and tape automation resources are not dictated by the length of the backup window. All tape and library resources can be shared between any number and any type of application and can be utilized 100 percent.

• Improves data availability and reliability -- Through virtualization, IT managers can dramatically increase the number of "available" tape drives for backup processes and help to eliminate "tape" errors. The VSM Open solution isolates media errors so they do not affect the tape applications and eliminates drive-sharing requirements.

• Quick data recovery -- Critical or current information is available from the disk buffer for fast recovery. The VSM Open solution also provides a data migration tool that automates the process of moving data from old technology tape cartridges to newer technology cartridges, allowing data center managers to retain information on tape without having to retain old technology hardware and cartridges.

"As has been our approach to information lifecycle management, we aim to offer our customers a compelling choice for where data resides, whether that be tape, disk, virtual tape or virtual disk," said JR Roedel, StorageTek senior director of Information Lifecycle Management Solutions. "Through traditional disk-to-disk-tape backup solutions, you may have to implement a secondary process to eventually copy data out of the disk buffer to tape. The VSM Open solution offers sophisticated policy-based buffer management that allows users to define if and when data should be migrated to tape. There's no secondary user process and there's no use of server resources, keeping backup simple and allowing our customers to place their data on the device of their choice."

"Our research shows that shrinking backup windows and data restoration problems are among the top challenges that many companies face today," said Nancy Hurley, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "VTL solutions absolutely help users address these issues, and we expect that StorageTek's VSM Open solution will alleviate a number of end user data protection problems. The ease of use and scalability features of the VSM Open solution puts StorageTek in a strong position to lead the industry in reducing the labor and complexity of data backup and management."

In connection with StorageTek's VSM Open solution, StorageTek Global Services provides a portfolio of Support Services and Professional Services offerings that enhance the value of storage investments. StorageTek's Implementation Services include installation, configuration and testing, addressing interoperability needs with a single point of accountability. With baseline implementation for the VSM Open solution, StorageTek helps customers quickly realize full functionality, utilization and integration of virtual storage into their existing open systems storage environment. StorageTek Global Services also offers organizations other higher-level consulting services that help increase their ability to achieve business success.