EMC unveils disk archive for mainframes

Storage giant EMC is offering businesses a high-end disk archive for their mainframe systems that will give them an alternative to physical tape libraries, which can be problematic, particularly for such areas as disaster recovery, eWeek says.

With EMC's new DLm8000, introduced on 6 August, large enterprises using IBM's z/OS mainframe systems can move from tapes to disk for their backup and archiving needs.

The DLm8000, which leverages EMC's Symmetrix VMAX enterprise storage array, ensures synchronous replication of data for disaster recovery, ensuring consistency of tape data at production and backup sites, according to EMC officials.

Consistency of tape data between production and recovery sites is particularly desirable for large, transaction-oriented enterprises such as banking, brokerage and insurance companies, where disaster recovery with predictable Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) is a must, according to 4-Traders.

Physical tape transportation by third-party records management companies hinders recovery efforts by reducing the granularity of Recovery Point Objectives and dramatically increasing the RTO.

In addition, periodic lack of tape drive availability for batch processing, archive and backup applications can impair SLAs, further increasing the risks and business impact associated with unplanned service interruptions.

The new DLm8000 addresses all of these challenges, while integrating technologies from EMC into a massively scalable, high performance and highly available solution that helps mainframe users gain control over their tape processes and meet their recovery SLAs.

“The market told us there's a certain segment we weren't hitting because those customers needed more predictable recovery,” Search Data Backup quotes Jim O'Connor, director of product marketing for EMC's backup and recovery systems, as saying.