History 2001: Virtual Tape Library Without Tapes

After StorageTek, IBM and Neartek, Alacritus Software is now the 4th company to enter the virtual tape library market.

This time, however, the novelty of its Securitis I product is that the virtual tape library does not contain any tapes. Securitis I is a software kernel that converts a controller and RAID subsystem into a disk-based appliance that is a plug-and-play alternative to one or more tape libraries. The RAID emulates a tape library with, of course, far better performance in terms of transfer rates, access times and overall reliability of a disk array.

Alacritus is counting on the tact that HDD prices have dropped so much that they are actually a viable replacement for cheaper tapes, which strikes us as a slightly premature generalization.

Why not simply use a conventional disk subsystem to backup my data?

Alacritus answers: “Backup and restore software is designed specifically to write to tape drives and tape libraries. Securitis I is the only product available that is a plug-and-play alternative to a tape library. A conventional disk subsystem is not designed as a backup device and cannot be addressed effectively by backup and restore software. Further, there is no provision within a disk subsystem to provide the functionality of a tape library (e.g. virtual volumes, virtual tape drives and importing and exporting of data).“

By pushing Alacritus’ reasoning to its logical extreme, that is to say, imagining that tape and therefore tape drives and libraries would disappear, and at the same time, the specific backup software, Alacritus, a library emulator, would also then disappear.

Of course, the company doesn’t go so far as to suggest that, and actually offers backup on tape when off-site conservation is required, with tape as a secondary form of storage.

Hitachi Computer Peripherals and Nissho Electronics are the first OEMs to sign on with Alacritus.

The Livermore, CA-based start-up was founded by the core management team from Intelliguard Software, a company acquired by Legato in 1999, which was behind Celestra architecture, a serverless backup for the SAN market.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 163 on August 2001 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: NetApp acquired Alacritus Software for an undisclosed amount in April 7, 2005.