New 36 GB, 4mm Tape Drive Fills In the VXA Gap for i5 Servers

April 16, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

In February, after trying to sell 8mm VXA tape drives for a while on the System i5 server line, IBM killed off the product. The move came in the wake of Tandberg Data‘s acquisition of Exabyte, the former being the supplier of quarter-inch cartridge (QIC) tape drives to Big Blue after it got out of that business years ago and the latter being the once high-flying innovator that brought Sony‘s 8mm video tape technology to the data center.

By killing off the VXA tape product, which is a low-cost, midrange performance product that sits above QIC drives but below more expensive LTO drives (which have a fair amount of capacity and performance and cost a lot, lot more), IBM left a hole in its product line. And last week, it filled that gap in with a 4mm tape drive for the i5 line.

The 36 GB, 4mm tape drive is known as feature 6528 when it is ordered with a System i5 515, 520, or 525 server, which it will fit within, and it is known as a 7206-336 or 7212-103 when ordered as an external drive for attachment to any i5 server through a SCSI cable. The feature 6258 drive uses 4mm tapes with 36 GB of capacity, and with compression (done in the tape unit, not by the system) that can be boosted to 72 GB. The tape drive is sometimes called a DAT72 drive, by the way, and it has a native data transfer rate of 3 MB/sec for uncompressed data, and twice that with compression on. IBM did not provide a price for this drive, somewhat mysteriously, but it has been available on the pSeries and System p line for some time. Storage maker GST sells a clone IBM unit for the System p line that costs $661, and IBM charges $900 for its own.

So, do I hear 2mm tape, anyone?

RELATED STORIES

IBM Kills Off VXA, Older Tape Drives for Systems i5s

Tandberg Acquires Exabyte as Tape Market Consolidates

IBM Adds VXA 320 Tape Drive to i5 Line

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot

Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 16, Number 15 -- April 16, 2007

CYBER-ATTACKS ON THE RISE. PROTECT WITH THE TRIPLE PLAY.

COVID-19 has not only caused a global pandemic, but has sparked a “cyber pandemic” as well.

“Cybersecurity experts predict that in 2021, there will be a cyber-attack incident every 11 seconds. This is nearly twice what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times the rate five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016). It is expected that cybercrime will cost the global economy $6.1 trillion annually, making it the third-largest economy in the world, right behind those of the United States and China.”¹

Protecting an organization’s data is not a single-faceted approach, and companies need to do everything they can to both proactively prevent an attempted attack and reactively respond to a successful attack.

UCG Technologies’ VAULT400 subscription defends IBM i and Intel systems against cyber-attacks through comprehensive protection with the Triple Play Protection – Cloud Backup, DRaaS, & Enterprise Cybersecurity Training.

Cyber-attacks become more sophisticated every day. The dramatic rise of the remote workforce has accelerated this trend as cyber criminals aggressively target company employees with online social engineering attacks. It is crucial that employees have proper training on what NOT to click on. Cyber threats and social engineering are constantly evolving and UCG’s Enterprise Cybersecurity Training (powered by KnowBe4) is designed to educate employees on the current cutting-edge cyber-attacks and how to reduce and eliminate them.

A company is only as strong as its weakest link and prevention is just part of the story. Organizations need to have a quick response and actionable plan to implement should their data become compromised. This is the role of cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS).

Data is a company’s most valuable asset. UCG’s VAULT400 Cloud Backup provides 256-bit encrypted backups to two (2) remote locations for safe retrieval should a cyber-attack occur. This is a necessary component of any protection strategy. Whether a single click on a malicious link brings down the Windows environment or an infected SQL server feeds the IBM i, once the data is compromised, there is no going back unless you have your data readily available.

Recovery is not a trivial task, especially when you factor in the time sensitive nature of restoring from an active attack. This leads to the third play of the Triple Play Protection – DRaaS. Companies have myriad concerns once an attack is realized and a managed service disaster recovery allows employees to keep focus on running the business in a crisis state.

The combination of training employees with secure backup and disaster recovery offers companies the best chance at avoiding financial disruption in an age of stronger, more frequent cyber-attacks.

Reach out to UCG Technologies to discuss your company’s security needs and develop a data protection plan that fits you best.

ucgtechnologies.com/triple-play

800.211.8798 | info@ucgtechnologies.com

Admin Alert: The Process and Pitfalls of Duplicating Libraries Oracle Declares a ‘Renaissance’ for J.D. Edwards World

Leave a Reply Cancel reply