IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the next generation of tape solutions for IBM mainframe customers, with significant enhancements to the IBM® Virtualization Engine™ TS7740, an IBM mainframe virtual-tape offering designed to support business continuity, improved tape processing and energy efficiency through Grid connectivity and automated replication. IBM today also debuted additional tape and disk storage offerings for midrange and enterprise organizations.
"IBM introduced the first ever tape storage virtualization product a decade ago," said Cindy Grossman, vice president, IBM tape storage systems. "Building on this legacy of innovation, IBM today expands its leadership in energy efficient forms of data storage, including tape storage and virtualization solutions, both of which are highlighted in today's announcement. While others follow, IBM continues to lead in helping customers find the most business-efficient, low-power storage solutions for their information on demand environments."
As power consumption in data centers becomes an increasing focus for customers, IBM has increased its portfolio of "green" storage solutions across energy efficient technologies, particularly tape storage and virtualization solutions which provide optimal capacity utilization and low-power alternatives.
Building on IBM's history of innovation in tape virtualization solutions, which help customers optimize capacity utilization, the enhanced IBM Virtualization Engine TS7740 for IBM mainframe environments is designed to provide the ability to automatically duplicate tape data across three data center sites with its Three Site GRID Configuration, helping maintain availability in the event of a disaster. This new capability is designed to enable a Virtual Tape Grid computing environment with global awareness functionality that allows data to reside on TS7740s at three different sites while being easily tracked and accessed when needed. A Two Site GRID Configuration capability is currently available on the TS7740.
Other new features of the TS7740 that are being announced today are:
- On demand performance and cache capacity increments that allow the TS7740 to be tailored to help address customer-specific performance and capacity needs;
- A one-terabyte single-cache drawer configuration for smaller businesses that require less capacity;
- A Copy Export function designed to allow export of data from a standalone or GRID TS7740 for disaster recovery usage; and
- Additional functions that improve management capabilities for the TS7740
Availability
IBM Virtualization Engine TS7740 support for Three Site GRID, Copy Export for stand alone TS7740s, enhanced management features, on demand performance and cache capacity increments will be available on August 31, 2007. One-terabyte single-cache drawer configuration and support for Copy Export for GRID configurations will be available on November 23, 2007.
Small Form-Factor TS1120 Tape Encryption for IBM Mainframe Customers
IBM also announced today enhancements to the IBM System Storage™ TS3400 Tape Library, which now supports IBM mainframe attachment via a controller for the TS1120 tape drive. The enhanced IBM System Storage TS1120 Tape Controller allows the tape library to be attached to IBM mainframe platforms, offering tape drive-based encryption capabilities in a small footprint for IBM mainframe environments. Today's announcement extends the reach of the TS1120, and its drive-based encryption capabilities, to smaller IBM mainframe environments, remote offices and workgroups.
The TS3400 pairs the functionality and robustness of an enterprise drive with the small form-factor of a two-drive library that can hold up to 18 cartridges, allowing for smaller amounts of high-performance tape storage to be backed-up in a tape library at a low cost. Customers have the option of various cartridge capacities, allowing the library to hold up to 37.8TB [1] of compressed data, and the option for WORM storage.
Availability
IBM System Storage TS1120 Tape Controller support for mainframe attachment to the TS3400 tape library will be available on August 31, 2007.
Low-Cost Tape Drive for Midrange Open Systems Customers
Building on its momentum in tape storage, IBM is today announcing the introduction of the IBM System Storage TS2230 Tape Drive Express Model H3S LTO™ 3 Half Height, an offering which brings to mid-sized customers the tape drive capacity of LTO 3 tape solutions, but with slightly lower performance that allows for a low-cost solution. This model incorporates the new LTO IBM Ultrium™ 3 Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Half-High Tape Drive, and a 3 Gbps single port SAS interface for a connection to a wide spectrum of open system servers. This offering is designed for midrange open systems customers for whom low cost and space savings are priorities.
Availability
The IBM System Storage TS2230 Tape Drive Express Model H3S LTO 3 Half High will be available on August 3, 2007.
Midrange Disk Storage Solutions for Telecommunications Customers
In addition to the tape storage products introduced today, IBM also demonstrated momentum across its hardware portfolio with new midrange disk storage solutions announced. IBM today introduced new midrange storage servers designed for companies that require "hardened" infrastructures because of the industries they address or the data center environments where the equipment is located.
The new IBM System Storage DS3000 DC Power Model 02T, DS3200 DC Power Model 22T, and DS3400 DC Power Model 42T, are designed to help address requirements for companies in the telecommunications industry, as well as other segments, such as oil and gas. These new models of IBM's leading midrange disk systems feature built-in support for DC power and are compliant not only with the NEBS Level 3 standard for U.S. clients, but also with the NEBS Level 3 standard for the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.
Availability
The IBM System Storage DS3000 DC Power Model 02T, DS3200 DC Power Model 22T, and DS3400 DC Power Model 42T will be available on July 20, 2007
"IBM introduced the first ever tape storage virtualization product a decade ago," said Cindy Grossman, vice president, IBM tape storage systems. "Building on this legacy of innovation, IBM today expands its leadership in energy efficient forms of data storage, including tape storage and virtualization solutions, both of which are highlighted in today's announcement. While others follow, IBM continues to lead in helping customers find the most business-efficient, low-power storage solutions for their information on demand environments."
As power consumption in data centers becomes an increasing focus for customers, IBM has increased its portfolio of "green" storage solutions across energy efficient technologies, particularly tape storage and virtualization solutions which provide optimal capacity utilization and low-power alternatives.
Building on IBM's history of innovation in tape virtualization solutions, which help customers optimize capacity utilization, the enhanced IBM Virtualization Engine TS7740 for IBM mainframe environments is designed to provide the ability to automatically duplicate tape data across three data center sites with its Three Site GRID Configuration, helping maintain availability in the event of a disaster. This new capability is designed to enable a Virtual Tape Grid computing environment with global awareness functionality that allows data to reside on TS7740s at three different sites while being easily tracked and accessed when needed. A Two Site GRID Configuration capability is currently available on the TS7740.
Other new features of the TS7740 that are being announced today are:
- On demand performance and cache capacity increments that allow the TS7740 to be tailored to help address customer-specific performance and capacity needs;
- A one-terabyte single-cache drawer configuration for smaller businesses that require less capacity;
- A Copy Export function designed to allow export of data from a standalone or GRID TS7740 for disaster recovery usage; and
- Additional functions that improve management capabilities for the TS7740
Availability
IBM Virtualization Engine TS7740 support for Three Site GRID, Copy Export for stand alone TS7740s, enhanced management features, on demand performance and cache capacity increments will be available on August 31, 2007. One-terabyte single-cache drawer configuration and support for Copy Export for GRID configurations will be available on November 23, 2007.
Small Form-Factor TS1120 Tape Encryption for IBM Mainframe Customers
IBM also announced today enhancements to the IBM System Storage™ TS3400 Tape Library, which now supports IBM mainframe attachment via a controller for the TS1120 tape drive. The enhanced IBM System Storage TS1120 Tape Controller allows the tape library to be attached to IBM mainframe platforms, offering tape drive-based encryption capabilities in a small footprint for IBM mainframe environments. Today's announcement extends the reach of the TS1120, and its drive-based encryption capabilities, to smaller IBM mainframe environments, remote offices and workgroups.
The TS3400 pairs the functionality and robustness of an enterprise drive with the small form-factor of a two-drive library that can hold up to 18 cartridges, allowing for smaller amounts of high-performance tape storage to be backed-up in a tape library at a low cost. Customers have the option of various cartridge capacities, allowing the library to hold up to 37.8TB [1] of compressed data, and the option for WORM storage.
Availability
IBM System Storage TS1120 Tape Controller support for mainframe attachment to the TS3400 tape library will be available on August 31, 2007.
Low-Cost Tape Drive for Midrange Open Systems Customers
Building on its momentum in tape storage, IBM is today announcing the introduction of the IBM System Storage TS2230 Tape Drive Express Model H3S LTO™ 3 Half Height, an offering which brings to mid-sized customers the tape drive capacity of LTO 3 tape solutions, but with slightly lower performance that allows for a low-cost solution. This model incorporates the new LTO IBM Ultrium™ 3 Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Half-High Tape Drive, and a 3 Gbps single port SAS interface for a connection to a wide spectrum of open system servers. This offering is designed for midrange open systems customers for whom low cost and space savings are priorities.
Availability
The IBM System Storage TS2230 Tape Drive Express Model H3S LTO 3 Half High will be available on August 3, 2007.
Midrange Disk Storage Solutions for Telecommunications Customers
In addition to the tape storage products introduced today, IBM also demonstrated momentum across its hardware portfolio with new midrange disk storage solutions announced. IBM today introduced new midrange storage servers designed for companies that require "hardened" infrastructures because of the industries they address or the data center environments where the equipment is located.
The new IBM System Storage DS3000 DC Power Model 02T, DS3200 DC Power Model 22T, and DS3400 DC Power Model 42T, are designed to help address requirements for companies in the telecommunications industry, as well as other segments, such as oil and gas. These new models of IBM's leading midrange disk systems feature built-in support for DC power and are compliant not only with the NEBS Level 3 standard for U.S. clients, but also with the NEBS Level 3 standard for the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.
Availability
The IBM System Storage DS3000 DC Power Model 02T, DS3200 DC Power Model 22T, and DS3400 DC Power Model 42T will be available on July 20, 2007
