GST Finds Sony AIT Tape Technology Meets Design Requirements for New Tape Product Line

AIT tape technology from Sony meets all GST?s stringent requirements for small form factor and performance to enable critical features in GST?s new backup and DR tape solutions.

Highlights

• AIT filled GST?s need for small form factor plus high performance.
• AIT enabled GST to go internal with tape drive on eServer.
• AIT supports GST?s modular packaging with small footprint.
• GST controller holds AIT drive and LCD Module in 5.25 inch bay.
• AIT combines the size of DDS with the performance of today?s drives.
• AIT roadmap: AIT-1, -2, -3 now; AIT-4, -5, -6 coming.

July 29, 2003, 2003 (Lake Forest, California) - GST, Inc. solved a major design challenge for their new tape product line by collaborating with Sony Electronics, Inc. to incorporate Sony?s Advanced Intelligent Tape? (AIT) technology into GST?s new tape backup and disaster recovery product line. Working with Sony permitted GST to use the smaller 3.5-inch form factor of AIT tape drives in GST?s internal tape solutions, compact modular tape enclosures and libraries. GST incorporated Sony?s AIT drives with GST?s LCD Module furnishing operator intelligence into the 5.25 inch drive bays of selected servers. The company?s new line of tape subsystems and libraries supports the IBM eServer family: specifically the iSeries, pSeries and xSeries servers.

Sony?s AIT technology delivers a family of tape capacities and speeds in a 6-generation roadmap. Three generations available are AIT-1, AIT-2 and AIT-3 with speeds up to 12MB/sec. and 100GB capacity. Three more generations planned with speeds up to 30MB/sec. and 500GB capacity.

Engineering Requirements

Early on, GST designers were faced with three major engineering requirements that would dictate the tape technology they would adopt. Three design requirements drove the final decision for the high-performance drive selected:

LCD Module ? Develop an intelligent LCD Module that permits the operator to monitor many aspects of the backup/restore operation; must fit with the tape drive within a standard 5.25 inch internal drive bay.

Small-footprint Enclosures ? Develop a small-footprint modular tape enclosure for individual drives or controllers that occupies minimum space. The drive in the modular enclosure had to be small enough to accommodate GST?s LCD Module in the chassis.

DDS and SLR Replacement ? Source a tape technology that has the form factor of DDS (4mm drive), the reliability and features of a super-drive like LTO, and can replace or co-exist with IBM?s SLR internal drive.

After carefully evaluating all possible tape technologies, GST engineers found the clear choice meeting all three requirements was Sony Electronics? Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT) technology. Its 3.5-inch drive form factor and high performance were the deciding attributes, with better scalability, reliability and cost as contributing factors.

Long-time entrepreneur in the storage industry, David Breisacher, CEO and Chairman at GST, Inc., has strong views on Sony AIT technology, ?In my career, I have seen AIT technology move relentlessly down a roadmap of continuously improving generations to meet the growing demands for high-performance backup and restore functions. AIT meets all of our engineering requirements for a compact and robust tape technology and can be combined with our patented LCD Module into customized solutions for the eServer family.?

?We are pleased that the AIT technology was chosen for GST?s new line of products,? said John Woelbern, director of OEM marketing & sales for Sony Electronics. ?The AIT family provides an excellent match for value-added tape solutions, such as GST?s, targeted at the IBM iSeries platforms.?

How GST Leverages AIT

GST?s major design requirements were implemented with AIT tape drives to deliver their unique new line of tape backup and disaster recovery solutions. These solutions take advantage of a number of GST innovations:

Internal iSeries Tape with GST LCD Operator Panel ? AIT drives, with their 3.5-inch form factor, are incorporated with GST?s LCD Module into the 5.25-inch internal tape bay of the iSeries today. GST?s developers discovered a strong interest in a display that would provide operators critical backup status measures. GST?s LCD Module displays: tape presence, readiness, when to clean, movement operations like read - write - load - unload - rewind - position, plus remaining unused capacity.

GST small-Footprint Modular Enclosures ? GST?s single and dual-drive tape subsystems utilize AIT-1, AIT-2 and AIT-3 tape drives for a variety of reasons, including their compact size and scalability. The dimensions of the GST modular enclosure (3.5?h, 9?w, 11.25?d) result in small units that weigh 3 pounds and are only 3.5 inches tall -- a stack of six is less that two feet high. All this combines to save valuable datacenter space.

SLR and DDS Replacement ? Like DDS, the form factor of AIT is 3.5 inches, yet performance is more like a high performance drive like LTO. AIT?s compactness, capacity, speed and reliability enabled GST?s Internal Tape Subsystem to replace or augment the SLR internal drive standard on the iSeries platform. Thus, AIT technology enables GST to replace or augment installed DDS drives (formerly 4mm DAT) on a variety of platforms, as well as SLR (formerly QIC) drives on the iSeries.

AIT not only met our stringent design requirements, it gives our tape subsystems and Midrange Library families the scalability to larger capacities and speeds we needed to handle today?s relentless growth and more stringent disaster recovery needs,? reports Breisacher.

Availability

All GST tape products using Sony?s AIT technology are now available..

Service/Support

Full service, support and warranty coverage is available for all products.

More Information

Phone: 949.673.1248
Fax: 949.673.3163
Email/Web: info@gstinc.com ~ www.gstinc.com

About GST, Inc
GST Inc. engineers, manufactures, markets and sells a line of innovative storage products to meet the need for high-performance, continuous reliability and cost-effective data storage for the IBM eServer family. This family includes iSeries, pSeries and xSeries servers. GST’s storage products available today are tape solutions that focus on improved backup and disaster recovery. Products range from single and dual tape subsystems, autoloaders and midrange tape libraries, to modular enterprise-wide solutions. GST’s unique modular design enables field upgrades, scalability, investment protection for existing GST tape solutions, and lower life-cycle costs. GST’s product development is guided by advisory boards that closely track market needs and fully utilize the latest engineering developments in product design. Complete information about the company, its products and support can be found at the company’s website: www.gstinc.com.

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Trademarks
GST, InternalDR, EntryDR, SafeDR, AutoDR, GrowthDR, ScalableDR, Commander, BridgeLink, SanMatrix, StorMount and Server-Transparent Media Duplication (STMD) are trademarks of GST, Inc. in the United States and other countries. IBM, eServer, iSeries, pSeries, xSeries, AS/400, OS/400, AIX, UNIX, Linux and Windows are the property of their respective owners.