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Crossroads ReadVerify Appliance Adopted by IBM
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on Wed, July 13th, 2011
Jump right to our comments
To pinpoint suspect media or degrading tape drives
Crossroads' ReadVerify Appliance (RVA), offered through IBM as 3222 RV1, provides visibility into the utilization, performance, and health of the tape drives and media in a tape library environment. The detailed insight provided by RVA can lead to operational improvements, such as completing backup jobs on time, minimizing purchases of unnecessary resources, and preventing premature wear of over-used resources. RVA collects data directly from the tape drives and library during data transactions, without impacting the storage applications.
This 1U RVA is rack installable in a customer supplied rack and includes ReadVerify functionality for the first 500 tape cartridges in an IBM TS3500 or IBM TS3310 Tape Library. Additional ReadVerify tape capacities are supported with additional feature codes.
RVA also supports an optional feature called ArchiveVerify which offers the automated ability to verify readability of long-idle or suspect media, providing an audit trail which could be used for regulatory compliance policies. The ArchiveVerify function is available as additional feature codes.
The RVA can be ordered at the time of purchase of new TS3500 or TS3310 Tape Libraries, for already installed IBM TS3500 or TS3310 Tape Libraries, or as a standalone solution.
Although the Crossroads ReadVerify Appliance 3222 Model RV1 is available through IBM, product fulfillment, service, maintenance, and support will be provided by Crossroads Systems, Inc.
ReadVerify enables the RVA to monitor the specified total number of cartridges situated within the library or libraries. The cartridge count is not associated with specific tape bar codes; it is measured by the total number of occupied tape slots in the library at any given time.
ArchiveVerify enables the RVA to verify the specified number of tapes within a library. Each unique tape bar code gets associated with an ArchiveVerify license at initial verification. Any tape can be verified an unlimited number of times, but once the specified number of tapes have been verified, then additional ArchiveVerify features must be ordered to provide the function for more cartridges.
Key prerequisites
- All tape libraries and drives to be monitored must be connected to a Fibre Channel switch with an available port for the RVA. With the Fibre Channel switch port accessible to the RVA, both LTO and 3592 tape drives and tape libraries, including the IBM TS3500 and the IBM TS3310 Tape Libraries can be monitored.
- An open N-port on the SAN switch connecting the tape drives to be monitored, to be allocated to the RVA
- Available 10/100/1000 Ethernet connectivity and provisioned IP address for RVA management interface
- August 19, 2011
For additional Fibre Channel tape libraries and drives supported
Our comments :
Crossroads ReadVerify Appliance supports about all tape libraries on the
market, from Dell (PowerVault), Grau, HP (StorageWorks), IBM, Overland
(Neo), Oracle/Sun, Qualstar and Quantum. NEC, PivotStor, Spectra Logic
and Tandberg are the only library makers missing in the list.
It can test also about all the tape media cartridges currently in used
(but DAT): Sony AIT-3 and SAIT-1, Quantum DLT and SDLT, LTO-1 to LTO-5,
IBM 35xx/33xx and TS11xx, StorageTek T9xx and T10000x.
Other companies entered in tape verification market with more or less success. They include FujiFilm (with Crossroads), Hi-Stor (acquired by Quotium), Maxell, Quantum and Spectra Logic.
Nevertheless, the need to verify periodically drives and tapes in
libraries proves that tape technology is not so reliable as what the
industry wants us to believe (30 years or more). To protect hard disk drives, you have RAIDs, but tape arrays never was an
acceptable technology and you cannot imagine mirroring a tape library on
another one for reasons of cost.
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