EMC rolls out large virtual tape library
Up to 1.8PB, starting a cool million.
By Deni Connor, Network World | Published: 02:12, 22 May 2007
EMC has introduced an enterprise-class virtual tape library, de-duplication of data software and enhancements to its data protection products.
At EMC World in Orlando this week, attended by about 8,000 customers, the company announced a variety of data protection products, such as a larger open systems EMC Disk Library 6000 family, a new version of its de-duplication software from Avamar and bare metal recovery of servers.
The EMC Disk Library 6000 Series is part of EMC's Disk Library family, which consists of smaller Clariion Disk Libraries that support 204 drives.
The EMC DL6100 and 6300 support as much as 1.8 petabytes of usable compressed capacity that can back up data at 11TB of data per hour. The VTL is based on EMC's Symmetrix DMX-3 high-end storage platform, which supports tiering and the use of low-cost Fibre Channel disk drives.
The EMC Disk Library supports open systems hosts, but not mainframes. EMC supports mainframe environments via a service that includes third-party hardware such as Bus-Tech's Mainframe Appliance for Storage and software. The company is planning to provide mainframe VTL capability.
The new disk libraries also support hardware compression and will support de-duplication in early 2008. The libraries support as many as 2,400 disk drives and RAID 5 data protection. They start at $1 million.
EMC also announced its latest version of its Avamar de-duplication software that allows the reduction of data stored on disk. This version includes support for VMware Consolidated Backup and reduces backup times of virtual machines by as much as 90%. The software now also supports EMC Celerra network-attached storage environments.
Avamar technology de-duplicates data at the client before sending data across the wire or storing it on system storage.
The company also introduced software called EMC HomeBase that allows for the bare metal recovery of servers. HomeBase software consists of a HomeBase server that controls server images and client software for each protected host computer. HomeBase works with Avamar, VMware and EMC Networker. The HomeBase server is $15,000; each server capable of bare metal recovery is $1,000.
Finally, the company rolled out enhancements to it RecoverPoint software for Continuous Remote Replication and its local Continuous Data Protection. RecoverPoint now includes support for Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service.
