System News for Sun Users

Cloud Storage: the Next Frontier for Tape

2013-04-30T16:00:00+01:00

This paper explores the usage scenarios and economics of public, private, and hybrid cloud storage services -- particularly in the context of recent evolutions in tape technology and usage. By taking a cohesive look at today�'s interrelated cloud/tape landscape, we conclude that there is a definite place for tape in the cloud services landscape.

Get Oracle's Tape Storage Upgrade Guide with Information on the Latest Oracle StorageTek Tape Solutions

2013-03-22T16:00:00+01:00

Oracle's "Tape Storage Upgrade Guide" is a great place to start a conversation with your Tape customers about what they could achieve with a modern tape infrastructure, Cinzia Mascanzoni posts, adding that it includes the following:

A chapter on each of our latest StorageTek Tape products, with explanation of the innovations and the benefits they deliver
Links to customer testimonials, white papers, and product overview videos
Information about the Upgrade Advantage Program and how to take advantage of it

Download your copy today. Registration and log-in required.

Oracle's StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library Perfect for Entry-level, Mid-level Markets

2013-03-01T17:00:00+01:00

Maureen Slavin, Senior Manager, Storage Product Enablement, Oracle, discusses the StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library in an OPN PartnerCast video. The growth and diversity of data is chiefly responsible for the need driving this product, according to Slavin. The SL 150 has great appeal for the entry level and mid-level markets, she says. Expansion by the customer of up to 450 Terabytes (TB) in 21U rackspace accounts for much of this appeal, she asserts. Oracle Fusion Middleware makes management of all this storage extremely easy to use and very cost effective. Suport for the SL150 is very partner friendly, further adding to the product's appeal.

Oracle's StorageTek Tape Products Capture Awards, Media Attention

2013-02-21T17:00:00+01:00

The media attention garnered by the recent successes of the Oracle StorageTek product line is reviewed in a post by Chris Ilg, Senior Principal Product Marketing Director with Oracle Storage Product Marketing. In December, the StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library won Best Business Storage Product at the V3 Technology Awards, and in January was named a finalist in Storage Magazine/Search Storage�'s 2012 Products of the Year Awards. A further achievement was Oracle�'s StorageTek brand's recognition by Storage Visions as Visionary Media and Entertainment Storage Company for advances in storage for digital archiving and preservation.

Oracle White Paper Labels StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library Superior to Quantum's Scalar Line

2013-02-07T17:00:00+01:00

The Oracle white paper "StorageTek SL 150 Modular Tape Library: Simpler and Smarter than Quantum" describes the SL 150 as the only system in its class that can easily and seamlessly scale without replacement from entry- to midrange from 30 slots and 45 Terabytes (TB) to 300 slots and 450 TB of data storage for more capacity in a smaller footprint than comparable Quantum products. SL 150 users can deploy and expand as need arises with up to 75% lower acquisition costs than competitor Quantum's Scalar i40, i80, and i500 tape libraries. Access to the white paper requires registration and log in.

Over 3 Exabytes of Media for StorageTek T10000C Tape Drives Shipped

2013-01-31T17:00:00+01:00

Oracle has announced the shipment of over 3 Exabytes (EB) of media for its StorageTek T10000C Tape Drives, tripling the capacity shipped a year ago. Oracle�'s StorageTek Tape Analytics and the StorageTek SL-series of tape libraries, including the SL8500, SL3000, and the SL150 are also experiencing very strong demand, delivering double-digit revenue growth in Q2FY13. Oracle continues to expand its tape portfolio, introducing three new products in the last nine months: Oracle�'s StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library, Oracle�'s StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager 6 and Oracle�'s StorageTek LTO 6 Tape Drives. Oracle continues to demonstrate leadership and growth in the tape storage market.

Oracle's StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library Wins V3 2012 Technology Award

2013-01-24T17:00:00+01:00

V3 Technology Awards 2012 named Oracle's StorageTek SL150 modular tape library as Best Business Intelligence Vendor and winning Best Business Storage, Cinzia Mascanzoni reports. The competition numbered over 300 entries from more than 100 companies. In a linked article by V3 writer Madeline Bennett, Sean Walsh, sales manager for Oracle tape storage, related Oracle's intention to appeal to the SMB market with the SL150. Walsh also cited the Hybrid Columnar Compression capability built in to ZFS NAS and Pillar Axiom SAN storage that can reduce the amount of data stored by up to 50 times.

Two New Tape Drives for StorageTek SL8500 and SL3000 Tape Libraries

2013-01-14T17:00:00+01:00

Oracle has announced the availability of StorageTek LTO 6 Tape Drives with Fibre Channel connectivity for its StorageTek SL8500 and SL3000 Tape Libraries. With these drives, customers can enjoy both the latest generation of LTO midrange tape drive technology and the industry�'s highest capacity enterprise tape drive, Oracle�'s StorageTek T10000C. Furthermore, with LTO 6 now supported in the StorageTek SL8500 enterprise tape library, Oracle offers the most scalable LTO tape solution available. For maximum flexibility Oracle StorageTek enterprise tape library customers can mix and match StorageTek LTO tape drives and StorageTek T10000 series enterprise tape drives in the same tape library.

StorageTek SL150 wins Best Business Storage at V3 Technology Awards 2012

2012-12-20T17:00:00+01:00

One of the winners of the V3 Technology Awards 2012 was Oracle's StorageTek SL150 modular tape library, which was named by readers as the Best Business Storage product, and Oracle itself was named Best Business Intelligence Vendor.

StorageTek LTO 6 Tape Drives Now Available in StorageTek SL3000 and SL8500 Tape Libraries

2012-12-10T17:00:00+01:00

StorageTek LTO 6 tape drives are now available in the StorageTek SL3000 and SL8500 modular tape libraries. This addition enables the following enhancements:

Higher Capacity: StorageTek LTO 6 drives have the ability to write 2.5 TB of native data to one LTO 6 cartridge, a 66% improvement over StorageTek LTO 5

Better Performance: StorageTek LTO 6 drive performance is 160 MB/sec (uncompressed), 14% faster than LTO 5

Investment Protection - StorageTek LTO 6 drives are backward read and write compatible to earlier generations for existing LTO customers

Oracle Announces StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager 6

2012-10-25T16:00:00+01:00

Oracle's StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager 6, the first and only mainframe virtual tape storage system to provide a single point of management for the entire system that leverages the security of the mainframe environment, is now available. The system delivers 2x the performance and more than 1.8x the total disk capacity of the previous generation, scaling on-demand to over 640 petabytes in a dense, energy efficient data center footprint that helps lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The impact of disk rebuilds is minimized by use of a unique triple parity RAID architecture throughout the system.

With LTFS, Tape Is Gaining Storage Ground

2012-10-22T16:00:00+01:00

"Tape lives," Chris Mellor proclaims in his article "Tape vendors thrust LTFS tool at punters" in The Register. Mellor observes that data lives in a spectrum with flash storage taking over from tape at the fast access end and disk storage gaining ground at the cold data, slow access need end.

Tape as a long-term data storage medium is far more cost-effective than disk, he contends, even deduped disk. With Linear Tape File System (LTFS), tape presents a gigantic backup and archive resource for users who require easy access to huge datasets too large for disk.

Watch the Google Datacenter Street View Tour

2012-10-20T16:00:00+01:00

Now you can explore a Google data center with Street View, a 1.46 minute overview that gives you an insider's glimpse at what goes on beyond those particular closed doors. You will see some Oracle solutions at work inside the walls.

The SL8500 can grow to hold 542,000,000 GB in 100,880 carts @ 5,500 GB/cart (T10000C). That's 180,667 x 3 TB disks of capacity. With 640 drives @ 252 MB/sec, the SL8500 can write 553,700 GB/hr.

Oracle Storage Enables T3Media to Grow Global Video Management and Licensing Business

2012-10-18T16:00:00+01:00

T3Media, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based storage, access and licensing for enterprise-scale video libraries, has implemented Oracle�'s StorageTek SL8500 modular library systems with Oracle�'s StorageTek T10000C tape drives managed by Oracle�'s Sun Storage Archive Manager software to manage data across two facilities. The 5 TB capacity of Oracle�'s StorageTek T10000C tape drives helped the company grow its business while leveraging its existing investment in StorageTek SL8500 libraries. The longevity of StorageTek T10000 T2 data cartridges also allows T3Media to migrate data on an eight to 10 year cadence, saving time and money over the 30+ year life of their data.

Getting to Know the Oracle StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library

2012-08-08T16:00:00+01:00

The StorageTek SL150 modular tape library, built from Oracle software and StorageTek library technology, is an entry-level, scalable tape library designed for growing small to midsized companies. The StorageTek SL150 delivers an industry-leading combination of ease of use and scalability, setting a new standard for entry tape automation. Three documents with further information on the SL150 are available to valid OPN Portal account holders. The documents are:

SL150 Product Overview
Partner Support Options with StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library Plus FAQ pdf

Oracle partners have the unique opportunity to sell this product with their own support service offerings.

Oracles StorageTek Tape Storage Solutions Enable Deep Data Archiving at CalTech

2012-08-02T16:00:00+01:00

To accommodate archiving of the enormous volume of data generated by its Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Project, the California Institute of Technology has implemented Oracle�'s StorageTek tape libraries and drives. The LIGO Laboratory migrated 12 years of observations (2.9 Petabytes PB) in 2011 to a system comprising Oracle�'s StorageTek T10000C drives throughout. This delivered 25x the capacity and up to 8x the performance at the observatories and 5x the capacity and up to 2x the performance at the central repository, enabling annual scalability at the rate of up to 1 PB per year from the next generation Advanced LIGO experiment.

Oracle Introduces StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library

2012-07-18T16:00:00+01:00

The new Oracle StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library scales from 30 to 300 slots and up to 900 TB of capacity, offers substantial space savings and 40 percent higher density than competitive products, and can be deployed and expanded at up to 75 percent lower acquisition cost than comparable midrange solutions. These qualities make it the lowest cost, scalable tape library on the market. Management of the StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library is simple and elegant, allowing users to easily view and navigate drive, library and media information without dealing with cumbersome file structure drill-downs as in other solutions.

Tape Storage Technology Comes of Age

2012-07-12T16:00:00+01:00

The resurgence of new tape storage technology is the subject of Karoly Vegh's post that contains information he garnered by trailing Oracle/StorageTek Tape Specialist Christian Vanden Balck around Vienna and overhearing the questions posed to him by customers, to many of whom the new developments in tape storage came as a welcome surprise. Vegh writes about the top 10 items that were of interest to users in Austria.

StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library

2012-07-05T16:00:00+01:00

An introduction to Oracle's new StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library will be presented on Thursday, July 12, 2012 at 3pm CET (2pm GMT), in a 60 minute webcast, Cinzia Mascanzoni reports. This is the first scalable tape library designed for small and midsized companies experiencing high growth. The StorageTek SL150 Modular tape library is built from Oracle software and StorageTek library technology to deliver a cost-effective combination of ease of use and scalability, resulting in lower TCO. Viewers can submit questions via WebEx chat, and there will be a live Q&A session at the end of the webcast, Mascanzoni writes.

Is Linear Tape File System (LTFS) Best For Transportable Storage?

2012-05-30T16:00:00+01:00

The case for the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) as an appropriate medium for data transport is made in a post by Rick Ramsey, who explains that, with the ability to split a cartridge into two partitions (the first holding a directory structure that shows the contents of the cartridge; the second partition holding all of the files themselves), the principal reservation about tape storage in transport applications is overcome. Oracle offers LTFS-Open Edition, which may be freely uses in Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 environment - in both LTO5 drives and Oracle StorageTek T10000C drives, Ramsey writes.

TLC for Your Backup Tapes

2012-05-01T16:00:00+01:00

Iron Mountain has published 14 TLC tips for your tape storage, an E-Guide from SearchDataBackup.com that alerts users to common tape backup errors and offers suggestions to avoid these shortcomings. Many of the tips are common sense practices, so much so, in fact, that they are often taken for granted and not observed during routine backup operations. In total, they are deserving of a prominent place on the wall of every data center, ideally in large, bold print.

Oracle's StorageTek Tape Analytics Software Automates Tape Management Operations

2012-04-16T16:00:00+01:00

The new Oracle StorageTek Tape Analytics simplifies tape management by eliminating manual intervention, thereby helping improve operational efficiency at a cost as low as half that of IBM's Crossroads ReadVerify Appliance. The StorageTek Tape Analytics software captures library, drive and media performance metrics and presents them in a single pane of glass, enabling the proactive identification of potential problems while providing immediate recommendations to prevent data loss. StorageTek Tape Analytics software can perform rapid drill-down into detailed drive and media health specifics, enabling customers to make decisions about their tape infrastructure and reduce downtime and commitment of data management resources.

USC Shoah Foundation Institute Upgrades to StorageTek T10000C

2012-04-05T16:00:00+01:00

The USC Shoah Foundation Institute has selected Oracle�'s StorageTek T10000C Tape Drives to support its ongoing project to catalogue and preserve visual testimonies from Holocaust survivors and witnesses. At 5 TB uncompressed, the StorageTek T10000C Tape Drive is the world�'s highest capacity drive and enables customers to boost capacity and performance while maintaining their existing footprint. The Oracle solution, which also includes Oracle�'s Sun x86 servers with Oracle Solaris and Oracle disk arrays, digitizes approximately 80 TB of data per month and is on track to finish digitization in 2013.

Oracle Magazine Feature on Enterprise Tape Storage

2012-04-04T16:00:00+01:00

Tom Haunert, editor of Oracle Magazine, interviews Jim Cates, vice president of storage technology at Oracle, about the past, present, and future of enterprise tape technology in this webcast. Cates discusses the evolution of tape storage from a mainframe storage technology to its backup role, then to open systems, backup and recovery and a multi-tier storage paradigm. Current uses in long-term digital archiving find a tape solution the method of choice, he says. With the advent of Big Data, tape will come to play an even larger role, he suggests.

Tape at 60: Long Live the Tape

2012-03-30T16:00:00+01:00

Tape may turn out to be as long-lived as the Galapagos tortoise, though next-generation drives are a good bit speedier, writes Lucas Mearian in Computerworld. Even at 60 tape has encouraging prospects for a considerably longer period of utility in the IT world. According to Mearian, " ... tape is too fast and too cheap to write off. New open file formats are also making it possible to use tape in new markets." With the advent of Big Data and the cloud tape has even more to offer the storage market, he writes.

Tape vs. Disk: Clipper Group Studies the TCO

2012-03-14T16:00:00+01:00

Oracle provides a link to downloads of two Clipper Group white papers on the subject of tape storage.

In Search of the Long-Term Archiving Solution -- Tape Delivers Significant TCO Advantage over Disk

Ten Reasons Why You Should Consider Enterprise-Class Tape for Open Systems

Registration is required to download these papers.

Oracle Ships Over 1 Exabyte of Media for StorageTek T10000C Tape Drives

2012-01-31T17:00:00+01:00

Oracle has shipped more enterprise tape drives than any other vendor in the first half of calendar year 2011, according to IDC�'s Worldwide Tape QView 1H 2011 Pivot. Oracle also shipped the most tape libraries, over 1,000 slots, and held over 70 percent market share for LTO libraries over 1,000 slots, according to QView 1H 2011 Pivot. Oracle�'s StorageTek T10000C Tape Drive is the world's fastest tape drive, also delivering a 5TB native capacity -- the world's highest -- with a transfer rate of up to 252 MB/second.

2011 International Magnetic Tape Storage Applications & Systems Roadmap

2012-01-03T17:00:00+01:00

The 2011 INSIC Magnetic Tape Applications & Systems Roadmap, released on November 30, 2011, is available for download.

The new Applications & Systems Roadmap is the culmination of a yearlong effort, led by INSIC�'s Barry Schechtman (Executive Director Emeritus and Technical Director for INSIC�'s TAPE Research Program) and which involved the participation of representatives of Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Imation, Oracle, Quantum, Spectra Logic and Symantec, as well as key inputs from industry analysts and applications experts in various fields.

The final report is balanced and credible, and delivers an optimistic outlook for tape storage going forward. However, INSIC also believe that this optimistic outlook will be fulfilled only if the tape storage industry continues to invest in the research and advanced development necessary to provide the future technologies that are needed.

Tapes Have Significant TCO Benefits Over Disk

2011-09-07T16:00:00+01:00

StorageNewsletter.com has published a story on the results of two studies of TCO in a variety of tape vs. disk scenarios. Both studies found that tape had long-term cost advantages when compared to a scenario that relied on a disk-only solution. The TCO under The Clipper Group scenario found the disk solution for long-term archiving to be more than $67M, contrasted to the $4.5M cost to deploy a tape solution a 12 year scenario. The cost of energy alone for disk at was $4M and only about $18k for tape.

Redefining Tape Usage With StorageTek Tape Tiering Accelerator and StorageTek In-Drive Reclaim Accelerator

2011-02-23T17:00:00+01:00

As the Oracle white paper "Redefining Tape Usage With StorageTek Tape Tiering Accelerator and StorageTek In-Drive Reclaim Accelerator" explains, the company's StorageTek T10000C tape drive is doing more than just improving �'speeds and feeds�' with its 5 TB native capacity and a native throughput rate of 240 MB/s. Instead, Oracle is changing the way applications use storage and defining new strategies for the use of tape. A new tape storage format with the StorageTek T10000C tape drive, using an innovative partitioning architecture, allows the addition or removal of storage space as needed. The StorageTek In-drive Reclaim Accelerator and StorageTek Tape Tiering Accelerator provide the capability to randomly access, add or delete physical partitions, which is a powerful tool in making tape the low cost storage of the future.