IBM System Storage TS Tape Library

The IBM corporation announced in May, 2011 the new offers for tape storage, expanded archiving and deduplication of data developed with the purpose to help clients with effective storage of large volumes of data and extraction from them the valuable knowledge applicable in practice.

The number of the generated information sharply increases every year, and manage this trend of army of sensors and mobile devices, social networks, services of cloud computing and public sources of information is similar to the Internet. On this background demand for data storage resources – with cumulative annual growth rate in 49.8% will continue to grow, according to the forecast of IDC. Clients demand new technologies and methods of extraction of benefit from the growing volume, a variety and speed of updating of the information arrays known as Big Data.

IBM continues to invest in development of the systems of tape devices as inexpensive and effective method of storage of large volumes of data. So, for example, today IBM announces details seven significant improvements of the product portfolio for archiving of data in the tape systems and storage devices of other types. In particular, the industry-first system of tape libraries which can provide storage over 2.7 exabytes of data that almost three times exceeds the volume of the mobile data generated in the USA in 2010 is announced (the exabyte is 10 in the 18th degrees of bytes or 1024 petabyte).

Creation of the IBM System Storage TS3500 Tape Library system became possible thanks to the developed IBM of new technology – the mechanical device for the connection up to 15 tape libraries allowing to create a uniform "library" complex of high capacity with smaller costs. TS3500 system offers higher (for 80%) storage capacity in comparison with comparable tape library Oracle that does her by "vmestimy" tape storage system in the industry and the ideal choice for the largest world data archives.

So, the National Institute of water and atmospheric researches (National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, NIWA) in New Zealand uses two systems of tape libraries TS3500 for support of the powerful supercomputer on the processor POWER platform which is used to the solution of complex problems in such areas as power, the aerospace industry, meteorology and modeling of climatic changes. Both libraries provide storage the 5th petabyte of data that more than 1 million DVD disks are equivalent. It means that if data from these libraries registered in DVD with a speed of one a disk in a minute, more than 2 years would be required to exhaust all information.

In 1952 IBM was a pioneer in use of the magnetic tape for data storage, and it became one of 100 of "progress characters" (100 Icons of Progress) in the century history of the company. Today IBM represents the tape device IBM System Storage TS1140 Tape Drive which is capable to store in 2 million times more data, than the first tape drive of IBM. The TS1140 device is distinguished by smaller quantity and more high efficiency of the components developed with the assistance of specialists of IBM Research that allows to provide almost 64% economy of the consumed electric power and more than 80% performance benefit in comparison with the comparable tape drive of Oracle. Thus, clients can increase the productivity at smaller costs.

Storage on the magnetic tape purchases new opportunities as inexpensive and energetically effective method using which the companies working in such areas as media the sphere of entertainments and health care, can create enormous archives of information and the digital assets managed by Big Data. Really, according to Enterprise Strategy Group, the number of the digital archives saved on the magnetic tape will increase by 6 times from 2010 for 2015. [6] IBM locates good potential that with benefit to seize this opportunity as is the leader in a segment of tape storage systems with more than 40% market share on income, more than twice advancing on this indicator of the closest competitors of HP and Oracle company, according to estimates of analysts of IDC.

Today IBM also announces the IBM Linear Tape File System Library Edition file system (LTFS LE) developed in IBM Research for convenient and cost-efficient access and management of large volumes of data and digital assets. Users of LTFS can index, look for, find and share more effectively the data which are stored on magnetic tapes of the LTO standard of fifth generation now – the open data storage format on tape drives.

IBM has clear advantage over system providers of data storage like EMC company who do not support or do not develop magnetic tapes. For implementation of multilevel data storage clients can share tape drives and hard drives that allows to store data according to the set priorities. So, for example, storage system of IBM Scale-out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) and the solution Information Archive is used by the set politicians for automatic data transfer on the "tape" level of storage. As shows an internal research of IBM, it gives to clients the chance to reduce total cost of ownership up to 40% in the long term.

The medical association Klinikverbund Suedwest GmbH integrates clinics and hospitals of Southwest Germany which personnel numbering 4200 people annually service over 250000 patients. Cooperating with the business partner of IBM Profi AG company, the association installed IBM XIV storage system with the software of IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for work with the existing tape library IBM System Storage TS3310 Tape Library. "By sharing of tape and disk technology from IBM, the association managed to lower storage costs of data substantially — the managing director of Klinikverbund Suedwest GmbH the doctor of medicine Günter K. Weiss reported (Gunther K. Weiss). — Thanks to these different levels of storage, we can guarantee to our clients and employees reliable and secure access to data".

IBM announces expansions and improvements today for the SONAS system which is created on the basis of the technology developed in IBM Research. Now SONAS can be scaled to more than 14th petabyte in a cluster configuration for storage of large volumes of data. The upgraded SONAS system offers also doubled capacity (or, otherwise, twice bigger amount of data, processed by a system during the certain time frame) in comparison with the predecessor and also the improved response time. Besides, the technology which will support widespread anti-virus applications for ensuring protection against viruses and malware, with a possibility of scanning of contemporary records and isolation or removal of the infected files is developed. Besides, SONAS will support the open network protocol of data management of NDMP now that will allow clients to perform backup and protection of data bulks in SONAS using the third-party applications compatible to NDMP.

IBM also improves IBM Information Archive for Email, Files and eDiscovery is previously set and configured complete solution for archiving of data. Thanks to the integrated hardware, the software and services, this solution which can be unrolled for few days reduces the total cost of installation and implementation of archive for data storage up to 70% in comparison with step-by-step implementation, according to internal testing of IBM. [10]