EMC Rolls Out Mainframe Virtual Tape Tool

EMC this week released an updated version of its RecoverPoint data protection software and a new virtual tape library (VTL) for mainframes.

EMC’s mainframe announcement follows CA’s announcement of upgrades to its mainframe storage portfolio last week.

The latest addition to EMC’s Disk Library for Mainframe (EMC DLm) portfolio, the DLm4080, uses software from Bus-Tech to create a “tapeless” VTL for the IBM z Series environment. EMC claims the new VTL eliminates the challenges tied to traditional tape-based processes and can cut data center operating costs. The new VTL tool, available in March, is priced at $850,000.

“The challenge is protecting information, but also prioritizing the most important information in terms of storage, backup and archiving. Our tool allows more efficient recovery and retrieval,” said Rob Emsley, EMC’s senior director of software product marketing.

In a typical tape backup scenario, data is transferred to a tape drive and then onto cartridges. The process presents ongoing issues such as increased costs, security concerns over potential tape loss or theft, and a longer time in retrieving data in disaster recovery events.

“In most mainframe situations, storage is tape-to-tape with maybe a combination of a disk connected to a tape library. Our product is all disk-based yet doesn’t require any process changes,” explained Emsley.

The EMC DLm features 1TB SATAII disk drives with RAID 6 protection and hardware compression. It’s available with either two or four virtual tape emulators and scales to 500TB of storage capacity while providing 600MB per second of throughput. According to EMC, it represents a 33 percent gain over competing mainframe VTL offerings.

The second product announcement is an upgrade to RecoverPoint 3.0, a technology EMC picked up in its acquisition of Kashya in May 2006, which works within a network environment when used with RecoverPoint appliances.

“It’s the middle man in the storage transaction,” said Emsley.

At the time of the acquisition, Kashya had about 100 installed users and EMC says it’s pushed that figure to 400. “We’ve had a very successful first year, with 200 percent growth in the revenue with this product,” said Emsley.

RecoverPoint provides remote replication from one data center site to another, as well as continuous data protection (CDP) for local recovery needs. “It’s like TiVo for the data center. You can roll back and recreate states of the data center from any point in time,” said Emsley.

A new tweak is that prior to the latest version, customers had to replicate apart from CDP activity. Now the two processes can run concurrently. Another new aspect is that the RecoverPoint application is now embedded in the firmware of the Clariion CX3 networked systems.

Pricing on the upgraded software starts at $20,000. RecoverPoint devices are $10,000 each.

Article courtesy of InternetNews.com