112 Spectra Logic Tape Libraries for US Prisons

Spectra Logic Corporation announced that the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons selected one Spectra T950, one Spectra T200 and 110 Spectra T50e tape libraries, all with BlueScale Encryption Standard Edition for data protection.

The Spectra Logic solution allows the Federal Bureau of Prisons to store and securely encrypt almost one petabyte of financial, policy, general IT and prisoner data, including sensitive healthcare records that are generated from four of the agency's sites.

The agency purchased 110 Spectra AIT tape libraries in 2004 and replaced the units with Spectra T50e libraries to upgrade to LTO-5 tape drives and media. The Spectra T950 is located at the primary data center in Washington, D.C., the Spectra T200 is at the site in Grand Prairie, Texas, and the 110 Spectra T50e libraries are dispersed among autonomous locations across the United States, including Federal correctional institutions, complexes, medical centers and U.S. penitentiaries

All of the Bureau of Prisons' T-Series tape libraries are configured with LTO-4 and LTO-5 Spectra Certified Media and are managed by Spectra Logic's BlueScale operating system. The uniform configuration lends a commonality among the units and allows individual storage administrators to manage backups regardless of product model.

Spectra T-Finity provides a method of encrypting data using a single key on the library, letting users add encryption without adding complexity.

"Our T-Series tape libraries are built upon Spectra's BlueScale operating system, which allows customers such as the Bureau of Prisons to manage all of their libraries, configurations, partitions, encryption key management,  library health monitoringand data integrity verification from one location," said Brian Grainger, vice president of worldwide sales for Spectra Logic. "With BlueScale, operators at the Bureau of Prisons' primary data center can monitor the tape libraries deployed in multiple U.S. states from a single location. Spectra Logic's Federal team has applied best practices from its 7-year relationship with the Bureau of Prisons to other Federal agency customers with similar environments."