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Sun Microsystems bolstered its data storage offerings when it bought over StorageTek last year. Its product portfolio now includes enterprise class disc arrays, tape libraries and data storage management software.
The company is also incorporating new technologies like utility-based storage and VTLs into its portfolio. A year into the acquisition, the company has released a modular family of data storage products.
 KS Ramanujam, director, data management and data storage business, Sun Microsystems, spoke to Priya Padmanabhan of CyberMedia News about the company’s data storage business.
Could you elaborate on the kind of data storage portfolio Sun provides to customers?
We have the entire portfolio of products and solutions that is required for a customer to have storage infrastructure. This includes pieces that connect to application servers -connectivity switches. Then we have disc arrays, both low-end and high-end, infrastructure that archives the data on a periodic basis and software that automates the whole process. We tie all the data storage together with data storage management software that manages the entire infrastructure, provides utilization reports and multiple other parameters for the administrator. We also offer solutions that help customers implement product portfolios and technologies to architect and implement systems as per the customer needs.
You recently introduced the virtual data storage manager. What does it do?
One of the biggest challenges for customers is the growing explosion of data. They keep adding storage infrastructure as and when their business grows. So there are multiple pools of infrastructure. We are helping them manage this data by providing a layer that helps customers manage primary and secondary data storage infrastructure.
What kind of data storage offerings did Sun offer prior to the StorageTek acquisition in 2005?
Even before StorageTek, we were a fairly strong storage player. We dominated the UNIX market for storage. Before, we had disc array products and used to OEM the tape libraries from StorageTek. We were working with them as partners. But with the acquisition, we suddenly had the entire addressable market for heterogeneous data storage. It helped us get the technology for ourselves and manage large and complex data storage systems. It gave us the capability to address the whole marketplace.
What is your take on the tape versus disc technology issue? Do you think tape is getting phased out?
Well, disc vendors want tape to be non-existent. However, tape is also evolving in terms of technology. We have higher capacity tape libraries and increased access tape libraries. The tape has always been seen as an archival medium and in an archival medium you want maximum data security. On a disc, one overwrites the data because you move the past data on to the library where you want it to be safe. We recently launched the T-10000 that offers the highest level of encryption.
Sun is a huge proponent of utility computing. How are you tweaking your data storage strategy to align with this?
Yes, we have been one of the earliest proponents of utility computing. One of the offerings in line with utility computing is utility-based data storage. Here, the customer pays for the data storage he uses on the basis of per GB per hour. It is entirely managed and provided by Sun. Various other vendors have tried to announce the same thing that we pioneered a couple of years ago.
How are you distinguishing yourself from the other data storage players in the market?
For a customer the complete data compute infrastructure is a single stack. He wants one vendor and does not want to be caught in interoperability issues. This is our biggest strength. Even in cases where customers want to have the best of technology on compute and data storage, we can provide a hand.
We offer services that can help the customer get the maximum out of data storage. We provide the entire software to support pools of compute and data storage. Then we also classify and prioritize data based on the criticality of the application or data. We help customers put in place tiered data storage architecture. Information Lifecycle Managament (ILM) is just one piece in our tiered data storage architecture. Under ILM, we have disc arrays, identity based access and data storage management. Our software allows us to offer ILM across technologies offered by other vendors.
What are the future technologies that you are betting on?
The future technologies that Sun is working on is to ensure high reliability of technology, ensuring maximum data security and faster and easier management of data. Encryption is an area we are focusing on and also data storage management and reporting, utilization and monitoring and standardizing various technologies.
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