Luminex Enhances Mainframe VTL With De-Dupe Systems

Luminex Software, Inc. announced the availability of its Luminex Tape Monitor Software (LTMON) for mainframe virtual tape systems, the latest enhancement to Luminex’s Channel Gateway mainframe virtual tape products designed to improve its capabilities for enterprise data centers.

Luminex also is announcing its High Availability Grid (HA-Grid) functionality which provides highly available and redundant mainframe virtual tape storage.

LTMON Software is a z/OS started task which enables the mainframe operations staff to monitor and display messages and initiate commands to the Luminex Channel Gateways (virtual tape control units) and storage systems directly from the mainframe’s master console. LTMON is currently in use by some of the largest Luminex customers with data deduplication storage systems. These customers use LTMON to provide integrated and centralized management for the complete virtual tape solution with a native mainframe console, including such items as alerts for hard disk errors, capacity reporting, and scratch tape management.

ViON Corporation, a Luminex channel partner, specializes in designing, delivering and maintaining storage and server solutions to data centers throughout federal, state and local governments. According to Doug Moore, Executive Vice President of ViON, "Our customers had unique requirements that included a single point of management for all messages from their Channel Gateways and EMC/Data Domain storage. Luminex Channel Gateways with LTMON’s capability allowed our customers to more effectively manage their virtual tape environment. Even EMC/Data Domain storage system alerts are proactively reported to their mainframe operating console. LTMON has simplified and streamlined our customers’ mainframe storage operations, without requiring fundamental changes in mainframe operating procedures, thus smoothing the implementation process for our mainframe customers."

Luminex’s HA-Grid functionality builds on its previously announced SyncCopy replication management feature, and provides mainframe data centers with further integration using the new LTMON mainframe console-based management Software. HA-Grid functionality provides organizations the ability to leverage multiple storage systems to provide fully redundant local storage of virtual tape data, with automated failover for high-availability operations.

"Luminex continues to provide industry leadership with our Channel Gateway products," states Arthur Tolsma, CEO of Luminex. "We are excited to continue working with our growing customer base to deliver real-world innovations at a rapid pace and to help mainframe datacenters increase their capabilities while also saving costs and improving daily operations."

LTMON is generally available immediately, and HA-Grid is planned for general availability in April 2011. LTMON, SyncCopy and HA-Grid complement the Luminex customer-driven suite of products, including Tape Migration Software and Services, DataStream Intelligence for maximizing data deduplication rates and Tape Monitoring and Allocation Control System (TMACS) Software for complex device allocation management.