Sun Microsystems today announced new tape, encryption key management and archiving products, and also open sourced its key management software and the “Honeycomb” archiving technology used in the Sun StorageTek 5800 system.
Alex North, Sun group manager for tape and archive solutions, said the product moves are part of Sun’s “open archive” strategy, using open source technologies and APIs to create heterogeneous and scalable archiving solutions.
The new Sun StorageTek SL3000 tape library brings enterprise-class features to the midrange, said North. It offers non-disruptive capacity, performance scalability, multiple partitioning for consolidation, and support for open systems and mainframe environments.
Based on the high-end Sun StorageTek SL8500, it can scale up to 3,000 slots, packing in as much as 3 petabytes with compression, while saving on space and power costs. Pricing starts at $68,000.
Sun also unveiled new fast-access tape drives, the Sun StorageTek T9840D, with an average data access time as much as four times faster than conventional tape drives, for nearline archive applications. The $38,000 drives are also backwards-compatible with four generations of tape drives and include encryption.
Crypto Key Management System (KMS) 2.0 supports HP LTO, Sun StorageTek T9840D and Sun StorageTek T10000 drives. Sun plans to offer key management for disk by the end of the year, North said. Pricing for the KMS starts at $8,000.
Sun also announced the Customer Ready Infinite Archive System, a multi-tiered archive appliance that automates data movement across tiers of storage, including disk and tape. Built around Sun’s Storage Archive Manager (SAM) software, Sun claims the appliance is cheaper and uses less power than competing solutions. Pricing starts at $130,000.