IBM enhances tape, archiving, dedupe for big data

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM announced that it has enhanced its tape storage, archiving, and deduplication offerings for big data.

The new offerings include tape library system, IBM System Storage TS3500, which can provide over 2.7 exabytes of storage, enough to store nearly three times all the mobile data generated in the US in 2010 (an exabyte is 1 followed by 18 zeroes), says the company.

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The TS3500 is enabled by a new, IBM-developed shuttle technology, a mechanical attachment that connects up to 15 tape libraries to create a single library complex. IBM claims that TS3500 can offer 80 per cent more capacity than a comparable Oracle tape library.

IBM also introduced new System Storage TS1140 tape drive, which can hold two million times more data than IBM’s first tape drive.

Also introduced was a new file system access to select IBM tape libraries with the IBM Linear Tape File System Library Edition (LTFS LE).

IBM also announced enhancements to SONAS, which scales to over 14 petabytes of clustered storage and is based on technology invented by IBM Research.

SONAS, support an open standard protocol called NDMP, is capable to offer double the throughput, the amount of data processed by the system during a given period of time, of its predecessor, says the company.

IBM is also improving IBM Information Archive for email, files and eDiscovery, a pre-installed, pre-configured archiving solution.

Also, IBM announced enhanced tape virtualization offerings for mainframe or open storage environments to provide clients improved access to and protection for their data in the virtualized datacenter. These include:

Adding many-to-many replication feature to IBM System Storage TS7650 ProtecTIER deduplication solutions.

The TS7700 virtual tape library will be able to leaverage IBM Power7 technology and deliver 70 per cent better performance than a comparable Oracle offering, claims the company.

“As part of its $6 billion annual investment in R&D, IBM continues to develop innovative storage technologies for smarter computing,” said Brian Truskowski, GM, IBM System Storage and Networking. “The data protection and retention solutions IBM is announcing today provide clients with a comprehensive approach to protecting and accessing their most valuable asset – their data.”