Retail and wholesale multimedia software and systems developer, Virtually Unbelievable Enterprises, has invested in excess of R2 million in storage technology to protect its more than 30 000-strong album database.
Evert de Ruiter, Virtually Unbelievable director, takes up the story. "When we started the business in November 1997, we started recording music onto IDE HDD`s. The initial idea was to only have about 2,000 albums on the system," he says.
The need soon arose for a more reliable and secure storage solution. "We found there would be substantial benefits in increasing the size of the database, so we decided to significantly increase our storage capacity."
De Ruiter approached local mass storage specialists, SCSI Technology, for a solution. It was not long before a wide range of HDD`s, RAID and storage drives was shipped to its doors in Cape Town.
"When we installed our first DPT RAIDstation, we used an off-the-shelf Pentium PCs running Linux. This machine featured a DPT PM3334UW controller (1 UW channel, non-differential) to control two RAID arrays: the first one, the system disk, was set up as RAID 1 on 2 X 2.1 GB Barracudas and the second, the storage array had 7 9GB Seagate Cheetah HDD`s," explains de Ruiter.
Due to problems experienced with the Linux file system, as well as the Linux SCSI implementation, the company decided to move the OS to FreeBSD.
"We did this when we purchased our second RAIDstation from SCSI, which also had seven 9GB Seagate Cheetah HDD`s. We added a DPT SX4030 add-on board (1 UW channel, non-differential) to the RAID controller, and slotted four 16MB parity SIMMS into the controller. The system was also moved to a P-II PC with additional RAM."
Jessy Naicker, MD of SCSI Technology reveals that the storage array set-up at Virtually Unbelievable is as follows: the two RAID stations are set up as RAID 5 arrays, with one drive in the second RAID station set up as the global designated hot spare. The two systems` HDD`s are still set up as RAID 1.
"Virtually Unbelievable has used a wide range of products from the SCSI stable, eg: DPT RAID products, PTI casings, and almost every SCSI HDD in the Seagate range," he says.
De Ruiter says the company has also recently switched to the Seagate range of IDE HDD`s.
"Our database now features 30,000 albums with 20-second clips of all the tracks on these albums." According to de Ruiter, he has more than 400,000 recorded tracks at his fingertips - which is a valuable asset.
"From the outset we realised our music database will be a priceless asset and would require secure storage. We have captured about 30,000 music albums to date, and will be adding about 2,000 per month."
Future plans include the company`s intention to upgrade its product, Pulse, which uses a touch screen interface for previewing music in retail outlets. Pulse makes extensive use of MS DirectX technologies and SCSI supplied drives.
"Our second-generation version of Pulse will be ready for release shortly. Besides being easier to use it will allow users to update the system themselves by capturing and recording new releases and additional albums on-site," says de Ruiter.
VUE intend to export their products overseas. "The current weakened state of the Rand, together with our product makes the export market highly attractive. We have already created a fair amount of interest in the US, Australia and the UK.
"At a later stage our activities in the various overseas markets will require similar set-ups to the one we have here. We are planning to have a back-up database in each country when we have clients in order to support the systems we sell.
De Ruiter adds that forays are planned into the video and book markets as well.
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