Sun announces new open archive library, tape drive

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Servers and storage array maker Sun has added to its open archive line, introducing a new library and tape drive.

The Sun open storage system means all its hardware and software is heterogeneous and works with any major operating system. It also takes advantage of open source developments, which means the products can be customised as users require.

The first new product, the Sun StorageTek SL3000 is a midrange library which offers enterprise-class features including high-level availability, non-disruptive capacity and scalability. The technology is borrowed from the 8500 enterprise product, said Dave Kenyon, vice president of product management, data protection and archive business group. "They took the technology and made it affordable in the mid-range market," he said.

William Trotman, UK storage product manager, said the system was easy to setup and ready to use. "It's a data archiving solution in a box," he said. "Plug it in, and you're archiving."

Alongside that, the SL3000 is half the physical footprint of competing libraries, Sun said, while featuring scalability from 1,000 up to 3,000 slots holding as much as 100 petabytes - all on Sun's "any cartridge, any slot" technology, which means any tape media can be used in any slot.

Sun also announced the release of its StorageTek T9840D Tape Drives, which the firm said was the first that lets users read and write across four generations of drives. Kenyon said: "Media winds up being an asset... it's not the drive that's the problem, it's reading it."

Sun further detailed previously announced plans to take its storage software products to open source communities. The Sun StorageTek 5800 code, previously dubbed "honeycomb" was last month donated to open source storage communities. Sun said its archive manager software would follow a similar route next month.

"Archiving is a big area for development, so many customers have unique requirements," said Kenyon. "We believe there'll be some interesting innovations... and there's always the option to put it back into the core product."

Kenyon said taking software open source to ensure interoperability is also key. "When you're storing for multiple generations, data outlasts the technology which stored it," he said. "We have customers that need to store for a thousand years. The technology that writes it won't be used to read it back."

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