Storage specialist Spectra Logic unveiled five products and advancements designed for exascale storage, including a high-capacity storage system, the T-Finity enterprise tape library capable of storing more than 3.6 exabytes of data, as well as performance, reliability and data integrity advancements across its complete line of T-Series tape libraries.
A single T-Finity library will now expand to 40 frames for a capacity of up to 50,000 tape cartridges. In a library complex, up to eight libraries can be clustered using Spectra’s skyway technology for a capacity of up to 400,000 tape cartridges. The T-Finity with TeraPack media storage is designed for support of Redundant Arrays of Independent Tapes (RAIT) and provides enhanced performance, reliability and data-integrity capabilities. With support for LTO and IBM TS1140 technology tape drives, the exascale-capacity T-Finity offers customers the ability to choose the media type and capacity options to meet their “big data” storage needs.
The company’s latest unified management software, BlueScale 12, provides enhanced performance, management and integration capabilities. With faster bar-code scanning and motion code enhancements, BlueScale 12 delivers 35 to 60 percent faster robotic performance across Spectra’s enterprise and midrange tape libraries, plus 15 to 20 times faster library ‘power on’ times.
In addition, BlueScale 12 provides support for CarbideClean media, faster and improved GUI and Secure Sockets Layer Web certificates and an XML-based Open Library API to enable customers’ development groups to directly interface with the system for integration with their customized software-management platforms. BlueScale 12 is available on all T-Series tape libraries providing a common user interface across Spectra’s entire range of tape libraries from the entry-level T50e, distributed level T120, midrange T200, T380 and T680, and enterprise-scale T950 and T-Finity libraries.
“The big data trend is driving technology requirements in applications ranging from enterprise data centers to academic supercomputing labs,” said Addison Snell, CEO of Intersect360 Research. “The next generation of exascale data will require capabilities that not only provide sufficient capacity, but also deliver the speed, reliability and data integrity features to match the needs of these environments.”
In conjunction with its exascale-capacity T-Finity and BlueScale 12 announcements, Spectra Logic also unveiled four exascale tape storage and archiving advancements: CarbideClean, which extends the life of tape media and drives by using a carbide blade to pre-clean media prior to shipment to customers for initial use, Bulk TeraPack Access Port (TAP) system, which allows customers to import or export tapes, Media Lifecycle Management (MLM) capabilities and reliability advancements to the IBM TS1140 technology tape drives, which are available with Spectra’s enterprise-class T-Finity tape libraries and TeraPack Optimized RAIT.