Aprilis Says Its Holographic Storage Technology Will Unlock Company Data; Many Now Regard Archived Information as 'Write-Once, Read-Never'.Business/Technology Editors NOTE TO MEDIA: Photo is available in a Smart News Release(TM) on Business Wire's Home Page at www.businesswire.com and at www.newstream.com MONTEREY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 26, 2001 Organizations that until now have not been able to access and use their archived data easily will soon be able to do just that, creating new and useful information for competitive advantage. And it is holographic data storage See holographic storage. systems that will unlock that information. "Most companies treat archived data as write-once, read-never, because it is hard to access and harder still to work with. Holographic storage An optical technology that records data as digital holograms that fill up the entire volume of a small optical cylinder one millimeter in diameter. It truly is an amazing technology. changes all that," said Glenn Horner, vice president of business development at Aprilis, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., company that is developing the first commercial holographic data storage system. Speaking at the annual meeting of the National Storage Industry Consortium, Horner said that while conventional magnetic- and optical-based technologies will continue to be important for storing large amounts of data, holographic storage will become the storage technology of choice for archived data because it offers significantly faster data access and read rates than either of the other technologies. "Cost-effective cost-effective, n the minimal expenditure of dollars, time, and other elements necessary to achieve the health care result deemed necessary and appropriate. , high performance, high capacity data storage systems will be a critical enabler for many future telecommunications Communicating information, including data, text, pictures, voice and video over long distance. See communications. , medical, general business, and Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the applications, which is what holographic data storage provides," said Horner. Aprilis has developed a revolutionary recording medium that satisfies all of the necessary requirements for high capacity, high performance holographic storage, said Horner. The patented Aprilis technology -- which will allow a five-inch disk to hold more than 100 gigabytes of data -- forms the basis of an advanced holographic data storage system that the company is now developing. Accessing and Using Archived Data Is the Problem Finding specific text-based information in data archives is time consuming and difficult. Doing the same with image-based information is nearly impossible. Even if users locate the data they need, their ability to quickly retrieve and use it for further analysis is most frequently stymied because storage methods and access tools often use different technologies. "This is why many people consider archived data write-once, read-never," explained Horner. "In the end they give up trying to access the data. But they also forfeit To lose to another person or to the state some privilege, right, or property due to the commission of an error, an offense, or a crime, a breach of contract, or a neglect of duty; to subject property to confiscation; or to become liable for the payment of a penalty, as the result of a the ability to mine a wealth of information that their organization spent a lot of time, money, and effort collecting." While there have been some modest improvements in data density and transfer rates in optical- and magnetic tape-based storage media, Horner said these media are unlikely to provide the data density and performance required by the explosive growth in data storage performance requirements. "Conventional optical systems are too slow and do not have nearly enough capacity, and tape systems do not provide the necessary random access and parallelism An overlapping of processing, input/output (I/O) or both. 1. parallelism - parallel processing. 2. (parallel) parallelism - The maximum number of independent subtasks in a given task at a given point in its execution. E.g. required to rapidly deliver data to multiple users on demand," according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Horner. Holographic See holographic storage. data systems of the sort that Aprilis is developing solve the capacity and access problems. About Aprilis Aprilis, Inc. (www.aprilisinc.com), based in Cambridge, Mass., develops holographic data storage systems that will enable enterprises and organizations to store, manage, and access large volumes of data -- easily, quickly, and at low cost. Started in 1999, its early focus is on large emerging markets served by applications with high capacity and high performance demands. In November 2000, Aprilis achieved a critical milestone when its holographic recording material was used at Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president. to demonstrate high data rate capability of 1 Gbit/sec. Investors in Aprilis include Zero Stage Capital and other private equity providers. Note: A Photo is available at URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. : http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/photo.cgi?pw.062601/bb10 |
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