Security (n.) Safety. Freedom from worry. Protection. (From Merriam Webster)

Famed bank robber Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, was quoted as saying, “Because that’s where the money is.”  Today, the money is in the information.  Safeguarding information from deliberate criminal or destructive acts and inadvertent system problems is crucial.  Tape plays a valuable role in delivering that safety.

The Ponemon Institute reported in early 2011 that the cost of a data breach had risen to $214 per individual record and $7.2M per breach.  Insurance against such high dollar events can result in a great return on investment should something go wrong.  One of the first, and still best, methods of insuring against breach scenarios is through data encryption on tape.  Given that the cost of an enterprise tape system can run sub 15 cents per GB with each gigabyte storing thousands of files, valued at $214 per file per Ponemon, the cost of tape encryption insurance is little more than a rounding error relative to the cost of a data breach incident.

Business continuance can be preserved through the use of tape storage like no other simply because tape can be “unplugged” from the system.  As now defunct Australian web hosting firm distribute.IT learned, failure to adequately protect its data with off-line storage i.e., tape, resulted in 30 minutes worth of hacker mayhem putting the company out of business.  4,800 of its customers lost their data with no recourse while the negative business implications of the attack cascaded through distribute.IT’s customer base and affiliates.  Failure to have off-line tape backups allowed the attack to destroy the firm’s disk-based backup data rendering the company inert.

Aside from deliberate mischief, having tape involved in your data security equation provides insurance against accidental or unintended events that can adversely affect a portion, or all, of your firm’s customer base.  Google learned earlier this year the value of tape as tape rescued user emails when a software glitch propagated itself through part of the Gmail system.  Without having data safely segregated from system-wide problems on tape, over 40,000 Gmail users would have lost their information permanently.

Say what you will about tape, but failure to ensure the integrity and availability of your data with tape copies off-line can have tremendously unfortunate consequences for your business.  Tape is highly secure, reliably ensuring data availability in the face of both deliberate or accidental data exposure and destruction.  Maybe that’s why tape rolls on.

The high importance of data protection is top of mind these days – specifically in light of some high profile cases of data loss in the UK. News of some potentially impending legislation this side of the pond has again drawn attention to the issue of how companies look after customer data.

The Grinch may have stolen Christmas from the Whos in Who-Ville, but theirs was still a happy ending. Dr. Seuss probably won’t write such a joyous postscript for your storage people if data is lost or stolen. 

Dear Ms. Meade:
How would an enormous up-front capital expenditure (aka CapEx) for a T-Finity reduce my capital expenditures? By definition, reducing CapEx means spending less, but you're saying if I fork out a lot of money, I'll spend less? Where is that logic? And reduce my operating expenditures? (OpEx)? T-Finity will do all that--is it a toaster and a floor wax, too?

Signed,
Doing Fine With My Powderhorn

Dear Doing Fine:
So glad to hear that things are going well in your world.

Would you be interested in what is going on in the real world?  It turns out that old technology is expensive. Tried to get spare parts for your Model T lately? How about finding truly floppy floppy-disks (the 8x8 inches model) for your Atari?

At some point, it's more expensive to keep old technology, given long-term expenses, than to replace it. Once we talk about replacing something, you are looking at your capital expenses. And the T-Finity does reduce Capex considerably. This part is very straightforward: costs less up-front, doesn't require extra software applications and  servers to run them--in fact, once you buy the T-Finity, you have what you need--partitioning (that's right, no database, no server and no external application, as required by the other very large libraries), encryption (that's right, no external software or hardware as required by the other very large libraries), and remote management (once again, no external anything needed). Right there, you've reduced your capital expenditures compared to the other guys.

Operating expenses falls right into line with this. Didn't I say NO external software, hardware, anything? Those typically  come laden with service agreements and idiosyncratic interfaces.  In my world, that means more parts to manage and to break, more software to learn, and more service agreements to pay. I’m not so sure about your world.

As to the floorwax part--T-Finity lets you use more floorwax, given that it uses so much less data center space. Alternately, you could put some other equipment in the saved space. And the amount of power a T-Finity uses is approximately that used by a toaster--but only when the library is really, really busy, and depending on how you configured it.

The expenses associated with your aging and soon-to-be no-longer-supoported Powderhorn are obvious and inescapable. Sometimes, you have to do the math and face hard financial realities. When that happens for you, please remember that the T-Finity is fabulous. (Yes, Ms. Meade E. Ahmogul gets paid by Spectra, but it's true anyway.)

I do hope you enjoy your Powderhorn and its savings on floor wax (as much as ten dollars). I also hope that, once you switch to T-Finity, you enjoy savings on space, power, and more (savings that will be in the thousands of dollars, even after you subtract the ten dollars on additional floor wax).

Sincerely yours,

Ms. Meade E. Ahmogul
 

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west -- consistently. Like clock-work. It’s a good thing. You can depend on it.

Sun, however, rises and sets almost indiscriminately and with little consistency. Except that it seems to be setting farther than anyone imagined. With every gyration, Sun sheds talent. It’s the kind of talent that made its StorageTek products a force in the tape storage industry well before Sun bought them. It’s the same talent that helped put large, automated tape libraries on the map.

If you’re a Sun tape storage customer wondering where your next library will come from then you should check us out. We’re stable -- 30 years worth. We’re profitable – again. We’re innovative – always. And we won’t leave you in the ditch – like the other guys. We have the storage products and expertise to help you leave the Sunset and get back into the light. Come see us. We’ll show you how.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Spectra Logic Corporation.  We’ve evolved over the years from an AIT-only shop, to a half-inch player, to… well, I’m getting to that.  As part of our celebration, we’re also announcing the most ambitious, market-moving, storage changing endeavor we’ve ever undertaken…  No.  We’re not buying Sun.

Instead, we’re delighted to let you know that the latest edition of a long and field-proven line of libraries from Spectra has a new member in the family: The Spectra T-Finity.

T-Finity leverages much of the technology inherent in the T-Series family of libraries that have made them so successful, then takes it to the next level.  Size matters and that’s where we’ve gone.

T-Finity is massive.  It will hold 30,520 cartridges in a single library—or up to 122,080 in a library complex.  That, folks, is 183 PB of data under a single point of management.  Go ahead and say it… "Awesome!"

T-Finity is intensely dense.  We put more storage into a single square foot of your data center floor than anybody else on the market today.  Did you know that Spectra Logic saved NASA Ames a whole house worth (translation: 1,400 sq. feet) of space with the same architecture as that used in T-Finity?  Ask us.  We’ll tell you how.

T-Finity is fast.  4,000 tape cycles per day.  Operational moves.  Real performance.  Not the – ahem - ethereal figures which can be found elsewhere.  FermiLab -- you know -- the national proton accelerator collider guys?   The really smart people?  Even they haven't asked for more moves than that.

T-Finity is reliable.  The kind of reliability you wish you had on your data center floor right now.  With redundant components for communications, robotics, robotics control, library management, and even drives, T-Finity supports it.   

T-Finity is efficient.  The other guys will use up to 6x as much power to store a TB of data.  Only the public utilities people like that kind of thing.

T-Finity is manageable.  One interface all the time.  One set of procedures all the time.  One skill set all the time.  Duplicating any of these means doubling your budget.  We don’t believe in that.  T-Finity with BlueScale management is built to back that up.

T-Finity is affordable.  T-Finity’s version of standard features is equal to everybody else’s extra features.  However, their version of extra also means extra $$$ out of your pocket to buy their gear and add-ons.  T-Finity features are built-in, not bolted on.  This saves you money.

T-Finity’s TCO story is the best out there because it’s massive (think ECONOMIES of scale), dense (saved a house) efficient (public utilities hate it), and manageable (one guy doing the work of 2).  Give us a chance to show you how great your TCO could be.

By the way, did we tell you it’s our birthday today?  And to think, you’re the one getting the present.  T-Finity. 

Come celebrate with us and learn more about the biggest, most innovative, efficient, manageable, secure, hip, cool, and  handsome tape library on the block.  You’ll be glad ya did.
 

November 10, 1785:  Netherlands and France sign treaty… ahhhh, storage for all.

November 10, 1801:  Kentucky outlaws dueling… No more fighting for storage!

November 10, 1919: 1st observance of National Book Week… Need lots of storage for all those books.

November 10, 1946:  Communists win many seats at French parliamentary election…  Equal storage for everybody!

November 10, 1950:  Nobel for literature awarded to William Faulkner… Bill knows literature.  We know storage!

November 10, 1954:  Lieutenant Colonel John Strapp travels 632 MPH in a rocket sled… That’s fast.  So is our storage.
 
November 10, 1969:  "Sesame Street" premieres on PBS TV… Simple.  Everybody gets it.  Just like our storage.

November 10, 1982:  IMF lends Mexico $3.8 billion due to threatened bankruptcy… Probably because they bought too much EXPENSIVE storage!

November 10, 1983:  Federal government shut down… Because they didn’t have enough storage?

November 10, 1989:  Germans begin demolishing Berlin Wall…  Achieving storage freedom!

November 10, 2009:  Spectra Logic announces something new…  More storage!  Storage for everybody!

See us tomorrow to find out what the next big thing in storage is and why you should get it.
 
 
 
November 10 dates in history courtesy of www.brainyhistory.com … Except for November 10, 2009 which is courtesy of Spectra Logic.
 

One score and ten years ago, our forefather brought forth on this continent a groovy little storage company that’s about to whup some… backside.   And in this, our thirtieth year, we’ll do it with the biggest, baddest, box on the block.

Come see us November 16th at Super Computing 09 and find out how.

It seems like not a week goes by without a story hitting the headlines about sensitive customer data being compromised in one way or another. If it’s not a laptop getting lost it’s a handheld device getting left in a taxi - in fact nowadays you can just pop onto Ebay to buy the bank details of a million or so people . These breaches of security are damaging for the corporations involved and extremely disconcerting for the people whose personal details are compromised, but they also raise serious questions about how companies protect data once it leaves the corporate network.