Virtual Tape Library Archives

Big Blue Unveils New Scalable VTL For IBM i

August 8, 2022 Alex Woodie

IBM has unveiled the iDSI620, a new virtual tape library (VTL) for the IBM i server, developed by its business partner, Dynamic Solutions International, that scales incrementally via 1 TB chunks up to 240 TB of storage capacity.

The iDSI620 is designed to keep pace with customers rapidly expanding data environment without requiring new hardware, according to IBM.

“With iDSI620, there is no disruption to your data protection as your capacity or performance needs change,” IBM states in its July 26 software announcement. “You can simply add a storage license to your existing solution.”

As a customer’s data …
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IBM Adds Public Cloud Targets For IBM i Cloud Backup

September 27, 2021 Alex Woodie

The cloud has become a popular place for organizations to store backups. And with the recent Technology Refreshes (TRs) for IBM i, the number of targets for the Cloud Storage Solutions for i has increased significantly.

IBM debuted Cloud Storage Solutions for i back in 2016 as a connector that allowed Backup, Recovery, and Media Services (BRMS) to push IBM i backups over the Amazon S3 protocol to the Cleversafe object storage system running in SoftLayer, the public cloud platform that would become IBM Cloud in 2018 (IBM would subsequently rename Cleversafe as IBM Cloud Object Storage).

IBM has augmented …
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Don’t Forget About The Co-Lo Alternative To Cloud

June 21, 2021 Jim Kandrac

Cloud is a consumption model, not a panacea. And for a lot of customers, moving some of their applications – or even all of them – to the cloud is something to consider. It might even possibly be the right move, right now. But for many customers who are committed to their applications and therefore to their IBM i platform, the best and lowest cost way to get infrastructure to support those applications is still to put machinery on premises or to have it installed in a co-location facility.

The numbers bear this out, and as we pointed out before …
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Cobalt Iron Supports Multiple LPARs with VTL

July 22, 2020 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops will be able to back up multiple LPARs to an individual virtual tape library (VTL) from Cobalt Iron, the company announced recently. The new capability overcomes a limitation that has existed since the company started to support IBM i with its data protection service a couple of years ago.

Cobalt Iron is a Lawrence, Kansas-based provider of enterprise data protection services. The company’s flagship offering, called Compass, provides backup, recovery, and related services for or all major computer platforms, including servers running on-prem, virtualized environments, and systems and applications running in clouds.

Some of Cobalt Iron’s customers …
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Sharing Tape Libraries Across Partitions Without VIOS

May 4, 2020 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops have a love-hate relationship when it comes to the Virtual I/O Server, or VIOS. With the latest IBM i Technology Refresh, IBM is giving the anti-VIOS group a feature they have been requesting: the capability to easily share a tape library among multiple logical partitions, or LPARs without involving VIOS, SANs, or multiple adapters.

IBM is calling the new feature “IBM i Virtualization for Tape Libraries,” and it’s based on RFE (request for enhancement) number 127631. While the words “tape libraries” and “virtualization” are in there, this is not a virtual tape library (VTL) solution. That already …
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The Cloud Breathes New Life Into Managed Service Providers

November 6, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

There are a number of hotbeds of technology in the IBM midrange – Rochester, Toronto, Atlanta, and Austin are the biggies – and there is a very large number of business partners who have been helping customers try to figure out each step in the advancing progression of technologies that have come out of Big Blue and its partners for decades.

The business partners tend to cluster around the hotbeds, as you might imagine, and we are pleased that after all of these years, there are still a lot of IBM i partners out there who do everything from help …
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LaserVault Puts the ‘i’ in VTL

May 2, 2018 Alex Woodie

LaserVault is rolling out a new virtual tape library (VTL) offering that could interest IBM i shops who are looking to get away from physical tape. Dubbed ViTL, the offering emulates an IBM LTO tape library, and thanks to integration with BRMS and HelpSystems‘ Robot Save, can provide the “set it and forget it” level of automation that IBM i shops expect from enterprise storage, the company says.

LaserVault, which is also known as Electronic Storage Corp., is no newbie when it comes to virtualizing tape products. In 2006, the Tulsa, Oklahoma, company debuted LaserVault Backup to provide customers …
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Dynamic Solutions Lowers Cost For Entry-level VTL

September 20, 2017 Dan Burger

If you’ve been waiting for virtual tape libraries to become more affordable, your waiting days may be over. Virtual tape libraries — automated backup systems designed to replace manual tape backups — have found a niche mostly in highly regulated industries and businesses with backup complexities that make simple tape backups time consuming and risky. Dynamic Solutions International, a data storage software company with experience in IBM i data management, believes it has reduced the entry costs to a level where small to midsize shops can affordably apply backup automation with its DSI425 Series, a package designed to …
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DSI Delves Into IBM i Backup Software

May 24, 2017 Alex Woodie

Dynamic Solutions International (DSI) may be best known as a provider of virtual tape library (VTL) solutions for IBM i and other platforms. But now the Colorado company is getting into the software space with a pair of backup offerings designed specifically for IBM i environments.

Conductor and Tracker were unveiled by DSI earlier this month prior to the annual COMMON conference in Orlando, Florida. The products were created to bolster the management of backups of the company’s VTL clients that are backing up from IBM i. But they don’t necessarily require a VTL at all, and, in fact, can …
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