StorageTek Gives VSM a Power Boost

StorageTek today announced a series of new features and enhancements designed to extend the performance and functionality of its Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) virtual tape management system. Additionally, the company unveiled an aggressively priced new version of its VSM system, the VSMe, designed to provide value seeking entry-level customers with an complete virtual tape disaster recovery solution suite at an attractive price-point.

Customers at all levels, from the middle market to the highest-end Fortune 1000, demand bulletproof business continuity and data manageability capabilities in order to protect key information assets. With the addition of the VSMe system, StorageTek is able to offer an entirely new generation of customer access to the world’s foremost virtual tape management solution while the company extends its presence into untapped markets and further solidifies its leadership status in the industry.

“StorageTek has been one of the leading suppliers of virtual tape storage solutions to enterprises worldwide,” said John McArthur, Group Vice President of Storage Research at IDC. “Virtual tape offers a compelling value proposition, but StorageTek’s first solutions were designed to meet the needs of larger mainframe data centers.

StorageTek’s VSMe, with its low entry point and upgradability, extends the value of StorageTek’s virtual tape technology to small and mid-sized mainframe data centers, while protecting investments as capacity requirements continue to grow.”

“With today’s announcement, we continue to drive innovation in a product that is the clear leader in the virtual tape market,” said Gary Francis, StorageTek corporate vice president and general manager, Automated Tape Solutions. “Companies today demand continuous data availability and iron-clad protection for mission critical information.

We are broadening our proven VSM portfolio to further address customer pain-points, drive down their total cost of ownership, and helping them to generate significant returns on their storage investments.”

StorageTek has long been a leading provider of virtual solutions to Fortune 1000 companies. The VSM system is an enterprise tape solution designed to enhance the performance of — and provide increased capacity for — tape processing requirements in mainframe environments.

In an effort to extend its management capabilities and to ensure data integrity, StorageTek has added critical off-site vaulting capabilities to maximize enterprises’ business continuity and disaster recovery initiatives.

According to the company, StorageTek’s enhanced Virtual Storage Manager provides a wide range of capabilities that help companies manage and protect their critical data. Customers will benefit from the following:

  • Broadened Business Continuity Capabilities – The VSM Offsite Vault Disaster Recovery Feature expands VSM’s disaster recovery offering by further streamlining normal vaulting practices, to improve speed, manageability and resource maximization. Coupled with VSM’s tape volume stacking and compression, this reduces the number of cartridges that need to be taken off site and improves the efficiency with which cartridges are moved and managed once they have left the VSM environment.
  • Increased Flexibility to Manage Data within the VSM – VSM software (NCS 5.0 / VTCS 5.0) provides a greater level of granularity of policy management over previous versions. This allows an easy to use mechanism for customers to extend their existing data management policies to meet their ever-increasing storage requirements. The software integrates, enhances and evolves library-enabling tape storage solutions for MVS-based platforms.
  • Enhanced Performance and Increased Capacity for Tape Processing Requirements – VSMe offers entry-level mainframe customers the benefits of the proven, enterprise-class VSM at an affordable price. The new model allows users to maximize tape utilization, free up floor space, optimize batch processing, improve service levels and realize tangible business advantages.

“The enhancements to the VSM system will significantly improve productivity and operational flexibility for StorageTek’s customers,” commented Russ Kennedy, StorageTek director of software development, Automated Tape Solutions. “With the improvements, companies in mainframe environments can further reduce batch processing time, storage management overhead and automate more data storage in a shorter period of time – all of which are key to helping them reduce total cost of ownership.”

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