Sun/Oracle - Leading in Tape Storage

Sun/Oracle - Leading in Tape Storage

Oracle just released the best tape drive unit on the market today, for Government, Managed Services, and Enterprises.

Tape Systems

The old portable cassette players, with tapes, were very reliable when driving, jogging, or even playing at home. Older had disk based iPods would experience skips when one goes out jogging, but quickly started to put portable cassettes out of business. Of course, flash media is now replacing spinning fixed disk systems, but the capacity is not quite there to replace rotating fixed media for larger capacity systems.

Tape was the media of choice over the years for many reasons:

• extremely high capacity
  
• extreme long term media durability
• extreme shock resistance
  
• wide environmental operating factors
• excellent portability
  
• low cost

There is a reason why tape has been so widely used in the Space Program - the reliability of long term use on satellites and craft like the Space Shuttle.

Transferring data from a hard disk during a jog will cause a skip. Transferring data from a spinning disk under massive G-Force of a space craft launch, you are likely to get a crash.

Disks were getting more portable with the ability to auto-park heads to better absorb shock, disks could spin down to avoid shock issues, and the storage was surpassing tapes. Tape storage solution seemed to show little benefit in modern era.

StorageTek T10000C

With native storage on had disks topping out at 2 Terbytes, there seemed like little hope for tape.

The StorageTek T10000C was released from Oracle, who purchased Sun, who purchased StorageTek - the premier vendor of Tape Archive systems in data centers. This latest product turned back the clock on data center history:

• 5 Terbyte performance
  (over doubling the maximum capacity of spinning rust on a fixed disk)
• Built in Encryption
  (for securing of data on the cartridges)
• Sustained 240 Megabytes / Second transfer rate
  (2x faster than copeting tape systems, 360MB/sec compressed transfer rate, out-performs inexpensive fixed-disk solutions)
• Exabyte Storage Capacity in a Library
  (worlds largest tape library storage capacity)
• WORM Capability
  (to provide auditing of systems in government compliance)
• Extremely Energy Efficient
  (200x more energy efficient than low end disk arrays since tapes do not have to draw power to store data or remain spinning.)
• Inexpensive Large Capacity Backups
  (up to15x less expensive than low-end disk arrays)
• Long Life Expectancy
  (30+ years media archive life)
  

Network Management Connection

In an era where Network Management Centers are centralized and managing customers world-wide, governments require the interactions of system analysts to be archived and stored for long periods of time. Often, these interactions require video streaming from a desktop screen in a Windowing environment.

Writing this archive data to disk does not pass an audit, since someone can come along and delete a file. Encrypting the data becomes important, for long term storage. Massive media requirements are driven by screen video capture.

The StorageTek T10000C will meet the requirements of the strictest audit, the streaming throughput of the largest managed services center, the capacity for the highest definition monitors, and the lowest cost requirements of those large centers.

Don't miss your opportunity to simplify life in your managed services data center.