Advanced Digital Information Corporation, the leader in intelligent storage solutions for the open systems market, today announced a major upgrade to the hardware platform and management software of the Scalar i2000, the company's intelligent enterprise tape library. In the new release, the Scalar i2000's integral iLayer management software introduces four important industry "firsts" for the tape library market which enable customers to reduce the time they spend managing their backup process.
These capabilities include true hot swap drives, drive firmware auto-levelling, native SMI-S support and integrated drive utilisation reporting.
The Scalar i2000 also increases its total capacity by more than 100%, now offering scalable capacity from 100 to 3 492 tape cartridges, making it ideal for backup consolidation in large, complex enterprise environments.
The Scalar i2000 library upgrade also adds enhancements to its relational diagnostic logic, expanding its logging capabilities to include additional traffic between the host and the library as well as increasing the amount of diagnostic data that can be stored in the library. Relational diagnostics, ADIC's unique approach to library diagnostics, automatically selects, gathers, synchronises and analyses library log data, reducing service calls by 50% and shortening issue resolution by 30% compared to conventional libraries.
ADIC also announced today that the Scalar i2000 and its relational diagnostics is now supported by ADIC's new iSurety service approach. ADIC's iSurety uses remote data access technology to link ADIC's technical service expertise with customers, their libraries and their backup system diagnostic data. [See today's related announcement, "ADIC introduces innovative service approach to backup systems".] iSurety provides faster and more certain resolution of complex, system-wide issues by giving ADIC's service specialists remote, interactive access to diagnostic data that includes information from the user's backup software, SAN fabric and other storage ecosystem devices. This is the first time a diagnostic tool associated with a library has been able to extend remote diagnostics out into the customer's storage ecosystem.
"Conventional libraries force users to manage backup systems manually or to deploy complicated external tools," said Steve Mackey, EMEA director of product marketing, ADIC. "The Scalar i2000 changes that model by building our intelligent iLayer management software into the library platform to provide better management and a different, more effective approach to diagnostics. Now we are setting the bar higher, with features like auto-firmware management, true hot swap drive technology, built-in drive utilisation reporting, and full SMI-S support. When you add the new level of support our iSurety service provides, the end result is superior data protection, a greatly reduced backup management burden, and much higher overall system integrity."
"Better management is critical to help IT departments reduce the time they spend managing enterprise backup," said Dianne McAdam, senior analyst and partner, Data Mobility Group. "In its new Scalar i2000 upgrade, ADIC is leading the way by providing standards-based tape management that includes native SMI-S support. This upgrade not only gives end-users intelligent library management, but also makes it easier for them to use a single set of tools to manage disk and tape together in multi-technology environments."
Smarter management tools
The Scalar i2000 offers powerful new management features designed to make the system even easier to manage, increase its overall reliability, and integrate into the broad storage management environment. For a full list of the Scalar i2000's new features and benefits, visit www.adic.com.
True hot swap drives - The Scalar i2000 is the first tape library to use virtualisation technology to allow users to change tape drives without having to make any other changes to the backup system. With the new Scalar i2000, a replacement drive can present the same serial number and worldwide name to the host software as the drive it replaces, so it completely eliminates the need to power cycle the library, reboot the backup application server, or rebuild software library profiles during drive changes.
Drive firmware autolevelling - Simplifies library management by automating the management of tape drive firmware levels. When a drive is added to the Scalar i2000, the system checks its firmware level and automatically matches that drive's firmware to the other drives in the library or partition based on user-defined policies.
SMI-S enabled - SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification) is a storage management standard developed by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). SMI-S provides a common language for monitoring, reporting and implementing multi-vendor device functionality and features with system-level software management tools. Native support for SMI-S will allow the Scalar i2000 to be managed more easily as part of the storage system using a single set of software tools.
Drive utilisation reporting - An integrated feature that provides details on how library resources are being used. By allowing users to look at overall trends and individual drive usage rates directly from the library, this powerful tool lets users balance loading to get better performance, reduced costs and increased system reliability.
The ADIC Scalar i2000 upgrade will be available in April 2005.
Share
IT managers in mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies rely on ADIC's Scalar i2000 enterprise tape library as the intelligent system for backup consolidation. Unlike conventional tape libraries, which are difficult to manage and service, the Scalar i2000 combines advanced architecture, management and service inside the library, so that users spend less time and money managing backup and get improved data protection. The Scalar i2000 offers faster, more reliable operation in SAN environments, and is designed to provide easily-managed integration with ILM environments and ADIC's own disk-backup solutions.
ADIC
Advanced Digital Information Corporation (NASDAQ: ADIC) is a leading provider of intelligent storage solutions to the open systems marketplace. ADIC is the world's largest supplier of automated tape systems using the drive technologies most often employed for backing up open system, client-server networks.* The company's data management software, storage networking appliances, and disk-based backup and restore solutions provide IT managers innovative tools for storing, managing and protecting their most valuable digital assets in a variety of disk and tape environments. ADIC storage products are available through a worldwide sales force and a global network of resellers and OEMs, including Cray, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, IBM and Sun. Further information about ADIC is available at www.adic.com.
Editorial contacts