In Sun Storage Augments Mainframe Renaissance, (login or registration required) Fred Moore, president of Horison Information Strategies, an information strategies consulting firm, has undertaken to write a historical survey of developments in enterprise computing from the mainframe perspective that discusses what the newest mainframe operating system and storage solutions have in store.

Moore begins his survey of mainframe history with IBM's System/360, and he pursues this thread up through 2008, when IBM was the sole remaining developer and supplier of mainframe computers that natively ran z/OS. With the introduction of that company's System z10EC (Enterprise Class), Moore declares, mainframe architecture gained a decade of life.

The author also notes the connection between mainframe architecture and storage management capability, mentioning specifically IBM's Hierarchical Storage Manager (HSM), which dates from 1976, and the contribution of StorageTek in 1988 of its robotic tape library, the innovative 4410 Nearline Tape Library, which became widespread within the installed base of mainframe systems.

This leads Moore to consider the current efforts of Sun StorageTek, (now a single entity) which, with IBM, HDS and EMC, is now among the primary suppliers of mainframe disk systems, while only Sun StorageTek and IBM remain as suppliers for mainframe tape solutions.

These suppliers have continued to make mainframe storage solutions the “gold standard” for other computing platforms, Moore observes, adding that the fastest growing segment of digital data growth is embedded in tier 3 storage category and includes archive, fixed content and compliance data. Tape is the primary storage technology used for tier 3 storage in the mainframe market, he adds.

This leads Moore to the assertion that tape is not going away, and its role is expanding from a pure backup solution to that of a premier long-term storage technology. It is Sun StorageTek that has continually driven much of the innovation in the growing tier 3 market for over 30 years, and it is this segment that derives the most benefit from future tape architectures.

Currently, through its most recent virtual tape enhancements, Sun continues to deliver new capabilities to the fast growing tier 3 storage requirements with several new offerings in the virtual tape area, Moore notes, adding that virtual tape has proven to be a powerful mainframe storage technology.

He points out that, with the now available enhancements to VSM5 (Virtual Storage Manager 5), Sun StorageTek is increasing functionality for both its mainframe Integrated Virtual library while adding a new VTL (tapeless) product for those businesses that want a disk only solution for their backup and recovery application.

In conclusion, Moore concedes that mainframes are not going to take away the far-reaching growth of non-mainframe systems, and these systems will continue to co-exist for the foreseeable future. For enterprise-class computing however, mainframes have withstood the open systems attack and its capabilities are often emulated by open systems as they strive to deliver mainframe-class functionality.

He writes that Sun StorageTek has consistently delivered innovative mainframe disk and tape technologies over the years, and the resurgent mainframe market has been given a significant boost from Sun StorageTek with its recent announcements for virtual tape solutions.

These statements are on target given that over 65% of the world’s digital data is optimally suited for tier 3 storage. Tier 3 applications are growing at nearly 60% annually while the value of tier 3 data can change from archival status to critical status based on the circumstances. As the mainframe has repositioned itself for the next decade, Sun is adding essential storage capabilities for tier 3 applications to do the same, Moore observes. Sun StorageTek is in the race for the long haul, says Moore.

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