GST entered the booming market for virtual tape libraries last week when it launched its new line of disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) appliances. Dubbed the VirtualDR line, this device combines an array of inexpensive disk with a high-performance tape autoloader, and is aimed at small to medium size businesses that need to backup between 2TB to 130TB of data residing across OS/400, Unix, Linux, and Windows servers.

Evidence suggests that IT shops are embracing virtual tape libraries, D2D2T appliances, and the concept of hierarchical storage management (HSM) to satisfy their need for faster backups, quicker recoveries, and reliable archiving. Because even the

Base One International, a maker of grid development tools, recently introduced a new data transfer capability that lets organizations build grids of clustered applications. The data facility, called High Performance Information Sharing, enables users to move data among the DB2/400, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, and SQL Server databases, which function as the control points in Base One’s grid architecture.

Base One is a New York City software company that has been writing tools that help developers build grid applications since the mid 1990s. Its grid development tools, called Base/1 Foundation Classes, integrate with Microsoft Visual Studio, and enables organizations to

New identity management and financial applications unveiled recently by Oracle will work with the iSeries, DB2/400, and J.D. Edwards software, the software giant confirmed last week. World and EnterpriseOne shops will be able to utilize Oracle’s Identity Management and Financial Consolidation Hub applications, which are two pieces of the company’s Fusion project to provide a common middleware layer for the various ERP applications the company has acquired.

While Oracle has been less than crystal clear about its long-term plans to support the iSeries and DB2/400 since it obtained the J.D. Edwards assets with its January acquisition of PeopleSoft, the software

Companies can now run the database portion of Now Solutions human resources and payroll software on IBM DB2, including DB2/400, the company announced last week. Now Solutions’ emPath software provides an array of capabilities for tracking employee hours and benefits, and now supports all major database platforms on all major server operating systems.

Based in Forth Worth, Texas, Now Solutions has been developing human resources and payroll software since 1972, when a company named Argonaut released its first HR and payroll package. This package was modified for client-server computing in 1994 by Ross Systems, which acquired the Argonaut package in