IBM announced seven new tape storage and enhanced archiving, deduplication offerings designed to help clients efficiently store and extract intelligence from massive amounts of data. The announcements include a tape library system that provides more than 2.7 exabytes of automated storage.
IBM System Storage TS3500 Tape Library is enabled by a new, IBM-developed shuttle technology - a mechanical attachment that connects up to 15 tape libraries to create a single, high capacity library complex at a lower cost. The TS3500 offers 80% more capacity than a comparable Oracle tape library and is the highest capacity library in the industry, making it suitable for the world's largest data archives, according to IBM.
IBM also announced the IBM System Storage TS1140 Tape Drive, which employs fewer and more efficient components developed with IBM Research, enabling it to use up to 64% less energy and can deliver up to 80% more performance than a comparable Oracle drive, so clients can improve productivity at a lower cost.
In addition, IBM announced file system access to select IBM tape libraries with the IBM Linear Tape File System Library Edition (LTFS LE), invented by IBM Research to provide a simple, cost efficient way to access and manage massive archives of data and digital assets. LTFS clients can now more efficiently index, search, retrieve and share data stored on Generation 5 LTO tape, an open tape storage format.
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 now offers double the throughput - or the amount of data processed by the system during a given period of time - of its predecessor and faster response times. The technology, which will provide support for commonly used anti-virus applications, is designed to offer protection from viruses and malware threats with the ability to scan archived data and isolate or delete compromised files. In addition, SONAS will now support an open standard protocol called NDMP, enabling clients to backup and protect large amounts of data in SONAS using ISV applications that support NDMP.
IBM is also improving the IBM Information Archive for Email, Files and eDiscovery, a pre-installed, pre-configured archiving solution. With integrated hardware, software and services, the technology can reduce the cost of installing and implementing a storage archive by up to 70% compared to starting with piece parts and can be deployed in a few days, according to IBM's internal measurements.
Finally, IBM is announcing new or 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.
More information on IBM storage is available at the IBM website.