IBM Launches New Virtualization Engine for Tape With Grid Computing Capabilities

IBM Launches New Virtualization Engine for Tape With Grid Computing Capabilities

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the next generation of tape virtualization solutions, with the introduction of the IBM System Storage TS7700 Virtualization Engine, a mainframe virtual-tape offering designed to improve tape processing while also supporting business continuity through Grid connectivity and automated replication.

Building on almost 10 years of tape virtualization solutions, the TS7700 Virtualization Engine introduces a new modular, scalable, high-performance architecture designed to address the demands of today’s clients and to provide for future growth and expandability.

The new TS7700 is built on a new hardware and software architecture that incorporates global awareness functionality, enabling a Virtual Tape Grid computing environment. With the introduction of global awareness functionality, data can reside on TS7700s at different sites, and each TS7700 is able to track where the data is located and access it. This design improves disaster recovery capabilities; for example, the TS7700 can automatically duplicate data to another TS7700 at a second site over standard TCP/IP communications. IBM also announced plans to expand this capability to TS7700s located at three different sites in the future.

“IBM was the first company to introduce a tape virtualization solution in 1997,” said Cindy Grossman, vice president, tape storage systems. “IBM continues to lead the industry with the introduction of the most advanced tape virtualization solution available today. This solution allows our customers to manage their data from online application storage to offline, permanent archive media.”

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