Spectra Logic announces support for IBM 3494 Tape Library Dataserver with Magstar drives.BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 1996--Spectra Logic announced today that its Alexandria Backup Librarian now supports IBM's 3494 Tape Library Dataserver using the IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) Magstar 3590 tape drives. Spectra Logic's Library Backup Personality for the 3494 Tape Library enables attachment of the 3494 with Magstar drives to multiple hosts running Alexandria software; each IBM 3494 may be shared simultaneously by up to sixteen different hosts in heterogeneous UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). environments. More and more companies now find they must perform "hot" or on-line database backups in order to maintain their business operations. However, the sheer size of today's databases -- many in the terabyte range and above -- has pushed backup requirements beyond the capabilities of many systems. Only a small fraction of the automated backup hardware and software available today can handle the demand. "With this announcement, Spectra Logic and IBM fill a growing need in the high-end UNIX marketplace," said Dr. Barbara Grant, general manager, Removable Media Storage Solutions, IBM Storage Systems Division. "Speed, reliability and ease of use are crucial to the large database and data warehousing needs of these customers. Alexandria's broad compatability and IBM's advanced tape technology are a winning combination that delivers on that demand." Alexandria, combined with the IBM's 3494 and the Magstar 3590 drives, is ideal for these demanding environments: -- Alexandria's high performance shared memory and interleaving interleaving - sector interleave formatter can stream multiple Magstar 3590 drives; -- low overhead and high availability make Alexandria the number one choice for Massively Parallel Processing (MPP (Massively Parallel Processing or Massively Parallel Processor) A multiprocessing architecture that uses up to thousands of processors. Some might contend that a computer system with 64 or more CPUs is a massively parallel processor. ) environments, such as IBM SP and the Pyramid RM1000; -- Alexandria is compatible on the widest number of platforms that attach to the 3494, including RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. System/6000, RS/6000 Scalable POWERparallel System and selected systems from Pyramid, NCR, SGI and Sun Microsystems; and -- Alexandria provides online (hot) and offline (cold) backup support for Very Large Databases (VLDBs) including Oracle, Sybase, Informix, SAP and CATIA A family of 2D and 3D CAD programs from IBM. CATIA was one of the first CAD programs to provide 3D solid modeling. The program was developed by Dassault Systems, a French aerospace company. . These are considered primary sites for 3494 automated backup. "Spectra Logic's largest customers are demanding storage management and performance on their UNIX systems that not only match, but exceed what their mainframe counterparts have enjoyed," said Nathan C. Thompson, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Spectra Logic. "With the 3494, IBM has bridged the two worlds with one tape formula. It is an ideal match for the Alexandria software and our VLDB (Very Large DataBase) An extremely large database. What constitutes a VLDB is debatable, but databases of 100GB or more are generally considered the starting point. and data warehousing customers." Alexandria was developed to provide unattached backup of Relational Database Management Systems See DBMS for a shorter list of “typical”, representative database management systems. Open-source software
RDBMS - relational database ) and large UNIX networks in demanding environments using automated tape libraries. Its true client/server architecture, extensibility and comprehensive automation of the backup process have enabled Alexandria's deployment in sites with thousands of workstations and servers with multiple terabytes of data under management. The IBM 3494 Tape Library Dataserver is the latest IBM StorageSmart Solution to provide tape automation for multiple computing environments. The 3494 manages up to 91 terabytes of data using Magstar drives. Each 3494 can hold up to 16 Magstar drives, and each drive has an uncompressed read and write capability of up to 9MB/sec. In a multi-drive 3494 configuration with the Alexandria software, more than 300GB of data could be backed up every hour. Alexandria's hot and cold Oracle backup is accomplished using the Alexandria Oracle Backup Personality. The Oracle Backup Personality provides seamless integration with Alexandria's sophisticated client/server backup of heterogenous (spelling) heterogenous - It's spelled heterogeneous. UNIX networks. Most exciting is the support for Oracle Parallel Server A version of the Oracle database system designed for massively parallel processors (MPPs). It allows multiple CPUs to access a single database. (database) Oracle Parallel Server (OPS). Alexandria's Oracle Backup Personality Version 2 combined with OPS fully leverages the power of clustered Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) systems. The Alexandria Oracle Backup Personality also offers both hot and cold backups of OPS databases. During hot backups, crucial for 24x7x365 operations, the database remains available for use. During cold backups, tremendous data integrity is maintained when the database is placed in a quiescent state. Spectra Logic manufactures backup software and automated tape libraries to provide high performance data storage. Alexandria supports IBM RISC/System 6000, IBM SP, Pyramid, Sequent, Sun SPARC (Scalable Performance ARChitecture) A family of RISC CPUs from Sun that runs mostly under Sun's Solaris, but also under Linux and BSD operating systems. After development began in the mid-1980s by David Patterson of the University of California at Berkeley and Bill , AT&T/GIS, HP, DG Aviion, DEC Alpha, NCR, Auspex, Motorola, Stratus, Bull, SCO, Unisys and ICL. IBM's Storage Systems Division offers a comprehensive range of storage solutions based on advanced technologies. Designed for IBM and non-IBM systems, the products are sold through IBM and a large network of IBM Business Partners. A selection of products, including IBM's industry-leading disk drives, are available to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). IBM's broad portfolio of storage products also includes disk-based arrays and storage controllers; magnetic tape drives, subsystems and automated tape libraries; optical libraries; and storage management software. For more information contact: Spectra Logic, 1700 North 55th Street, Boulder, CO 8030111 USA, telephone: 303/449-6400, fax: 303/939-8844. E-mail: alexandria@spectralogic.com, WWW WWW or W3: see World Wide Web. (World Wide Web) The common host name for a Web server. The "www-dot" prefix on Web addresses is widely used to provide a recognizable way of identifying a Web site. : http://www.spectralogic.com, or Information about IBM storage products and technology is available on the IBM Storage Systems Division home page: http://www.storage.ibm.com.storage. -0- NOTE: IBM, Magstar and StorageSmart are registered trademarks or trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Alexandria is a trademark of Spectra Logic. CONTACT: Spectra Logic, Boulder John Kranz, 303/449-7759 jk@spectralogic.com |
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