IBM Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS, V2.1

IBM Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS, V2.1 adds virtual tape emulation capability and supports lifecycle encryption

IBM Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS is a solution for leveraging the benefits of cloud storage as a new storage tier for mainframe (z/OS) data, offering additional options with new flexibility, security, and economic characteristics for the z/OS environment.

It supports on-premises storage, remote private, public, and hybrid cloud storage environments, and several other cloud storage platforms for optimum flexibility.

It is independent of either your mainframe storage hardware (disk, tape, virtual tape) or the supported cloud target environments. In addition, it is a software-defined solution, which does not require any hardware gateways.

Because Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS integrates with current tape or virtual tape processing – with or without the new virtual tape emulation capability – it provides a seamless additional tier of storage. This can be managed in the same manner as your distributed platform cloud storage, with the same skills and personnel. Additionally, familiarity with the mainframe platform is not required to manage the target cloud environment. No changes to applications are required to take advantage of cloud for archival, backup, or additional secured data copies.

Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS works within a security-rich framework to protect data. Data security is enhanced by lifecycle encryption control which optionally requires that any data transferred to the cloud must be encrypted before transfer through the use of either hardware encryption or software (ICSF). Additionally, data can be further protected in-flight by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) through the use of Application Transparent Transport Layer Security (AT/TLS). Alternatively, some VPN connections might provide their own encryption support instead of the mainframe-managed SSL. Many supported cloud storage systems provide their own options for encryption at-rest to ensure that your data remains even further protected throughout its lifecycle. Where lifecycle encryption control is used, other encryption would not be required.

For some organizations, a disconnected cloud environment can provide an additional air-gapped security-rich storage mechanism to guard against various types of cyber attacks. Some cloud options also provide methods to distribute data so that no single physical location contains the entire data set, and data can be restored even if one of the storage sites is unavailable.

For organizations with small volumes of tape data, who currently rely on direct-attached physical tape drives, a combination of virtual tape emulation to meet modest local tape usage needs and cloud storage for long-term archival and backup of cold data provides a cost-effective use of the cloud storage tier.

Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS, V2.1 introduces several key features:

• Virtual tape emulation solution with e-vaulting to the cloud or other systems for efficient local virtual tape usage as well as cloud-based offsite storage for cold, archival, or backup data. Virtual tape emulation simulates IBM compatible tape controllers, tape drives, and tape volumes. It replaces real tape devices with logical, memory resident, virtual tape devices. Tape volumes are replaced with virtual tape data sets that are maintained on any IBM z/OS-compatible disk subsystem. Virtual tape emulation in Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS provides several vault, transfer, and recovery options to support BC and resiliency.
• Automatic application recall of data from cloud, whether e-vaulted through virtual tape emulation or copied directly to the cloud. Automatic recall can seamlessly keep track of where managed data resides, on virtual tape or on the cloud, and will return the data automatically when called for. This feature is designed to return cloud-stored data without requiring the location of that data.
• Pervasive encryption support. This feature enables enterprises to ensure that any data copied to the cloud is encrypted before it is transmitted, automatically protecting and handling the encryption keys.
• Sequential z/OS data set cloud storage and retrieval. Sequential data sets stored on disk or flash storage can be moved to the cloud by Cloud Tape Connector for z/OS without the requirement of performing a tape-write operation.
• Additional tuning and multithreading options for optimizing data transfer speeds to the cloud.
• Support for Amazon S3, IBM Cloud Object Storage using S3 protocol, Hitachi HCP protocol, and EMC Elastic Cloud Service Protocol.

Planned availability date: November 16, 2018