Enterprise Storage Forum content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Overland Data, Inc., San Diego, CA, is in the business of developing data storage solutions that are easy to use and affordable for companies across the globe. According to Dave Morton, Overland’s Director of Product Management, the company provides its customers with open solutions that leverage and protect their existing IT infrastructure.
“We help to solve storage management problems for IT departments by delivering hardware, software, and service based solutions that enable our customers to better manage, protect, control, allocate, and utilize their information assets,” says Morton.
The company has been developing tape technologies since 1980 and has made its way to the top of the list of companies that supply automated solutions for complex computing environments. According Morton, Overland’s third generation of tape libraries adds Distributed Robotics Architecture (DRA) to the company’s award winning storage core. Named the Neo Series, Morton says that these systems ensure maximum up time, provide tape drive, robotics, power supply and controller card redundancies, and yield mixed media storage libraries.
The Neo Series LXN2000 and 4000 are the company’s flagship products. The LXN2000 started shipping in the spring of 2001 and the LXN4000 started shipping this winter. The 4000 series is an enterprise class library while the 2000 serves as a high-end solution for workgroups.
According to Morton, the 4000 series incorporates Overland’s expandable, modular robotics and features Live Swap tape libraries, remote fail-over, redundant power supplies, and redundant robotics. All operator controls are accessible through a touch-screen, graphical user interface. The Web TLCT program, a library management tool embedded in the Neo series, enables use of a standard browser (such as Internet Explorer or Netscape) to view the library and all of its functions including firmware uploads, problem diagnosis, remote fail-over, and configuration changes, over the Internet or over a local net. In addition, says Morton, drives, power supplies, controllers, and interface cards are all easily serviced with no special tools required. “A significant benefit of the Neo design is its capability to remotely transfer control from the Master module to any Secondary Master. This fail-over can be done either through the front panel or through a standard browser using the Internet and, either way, is accomplished without moving any cables.” Morton explains that in this manner, library operation continues even when one module is powered off or removed. In addition, he explained that back-up jobs could be completed using the remaining modules.
The Neo LXN4000 library provides non-stop operation in a 48-terabyte solution, which is also available in 6-terabyte increments. Each module has 52 SuperDLT or 60 LTO Ultrium slots and up to four drives.
Each module of the Neo LXN2000 has 26 SuperDLT, or 30 LTO Ultrium slots and one or two drives. According to Morton, the LXN2000 provides Overland’s customers with up to 230-gigabytes per hour performance in a single library. According to Morton, the LXN2000 supports the DLT8000, SDLT and LTO Ultrium drive technologies, and is ideal for a department or workgroup.
“Overland’s advanced connectivity features provide the ability to easily incorporate our libraries into Fibre Channel, SCSI, and other future IT storage networking technologies. And we can also increase backup and restore capabilities in SAN and NAS environments by enabling LAN-free and Server-free backup,” he concluded.
Company Information:
Worldwide Headquarters
Overland Data, Inc.
4820 Overland Avenue
San Diego, CA 92123
USA
Tel: +1 858 571-5555
Tel: 1 800 729-8725 (toll free US)
Fax: +1 858 571-0982 (general)
Fax: +1 858 571-3664 (sales)
United States & Canada: sales@overlanddata.com
Other offices:
Singapore
France
Mexico
Germany
Asia Pacific: asia@overlanddata.com
Europe: europe@overlanddata.com
France: france@overlanddata.com
Germany: germany@overlanddata.com
Latin America: latinamerica@overlanddata.com
Government Buyers: cringuette@overlanddata.com
Number of employees worldwide:300
Stock Information:(Nasdaq) OVRL
Revenues and Net Income:
2nd qtr. 2002 (fiscal) $45.6 million
2nd qtr. 2002 (fiscal) $43.6 million
»
See All Articles by Columnist Leslie Wood
