How Heidelberg uses tape and disk to keep the presses rolling

When it comes to best practice data protection, no single disk or tape technology can provide the complete solution.

Want to see why combining disk and tape really is the smart choice for data availability, protection and retention? Read how Hewlett Packard Enterprise examine a comprehensive approach to data protection that spans software, saves times and reduces the risk of one of the world’s leading printing companies.

 Click here to read more.

Case Study: HP StoreEver MSL6480 Tape Library safeguards business critical content

Tape may be one of the most 'old school' storage technologies, but that doesn't mean it can't play nice with the newest kids on the block.  But don't take my word for it.  This week, HP published a new tape testimonial from a very interesting and exciting source.  Because when it comes to video production and multimedia, it doesn't get much more cutting-edge than the advanced 4K digital film making projects created by Brain Farm Digital Cinema.

You might think that when it came to completing their digital workflow, the last solution a state-of-the-art video company would turn to is tape, specifically the HP StoreEver MSL6480 tape library. 

But as Brain Farm's post production supervisor, Danny Holland, says:

"Estimates indicate that our storage cost per terabyte is 86 percent lower with the HP StoreEver MSL6480 solution compared to an equivalent SAN disk array. The lower total cost of ownership of the MSL6480 tape library delivers affordable storage technology, providing us with a competitive edge in the digital media market."

So HP StoreEver tape is not just a means of storing data.  It is a key enabler that makes Brain Farm a more successful company.  In this blog, I want to take a closer look at why this is the case.

Brain Farm Digital Cinema is at the forefront of video production and its recent National Geographic "Great Migrations" documentary series won the company a prestigious Emmy award for cinematography.  The team has a reputation for creating breathtaking images in locations where few dare to go, especially in the fields of action sports and aerial photography.

Brain Farm often shoots several films simultaneously at 4K resolution with multiple cameras, each creating an uncompressed storage requirement of about 200 GB per minute. Moreover, a single project frequently involves a 100-day filming season, generating many petabytes of content.

The challenges faced by Brain Farm can be summarised:

• storing massive output volumes.
• inefficient labor-intensive stand-alone tape drive backup and archiving processes.
• an inappropriate disaster recovery capability to safeguard clients’ valuable assets.
• insufficient scalability to support growth.

 HP'sMSL6480 tape library meets these challenges directly:

• Each unit offers up to 560 slots, storing up to 3.5 PB in a single rack, with 81 TB density per 1U of rack space
• It can easily be expanded with extra drives, slots and cartridges, including future generations of LTO Ultrium for even higher capacities.
• The automated process is 10X faster than the old workflow and 86% cheaper than using a SAN disk array for this purpose.
• HP StoreOpen for Automation, HP’s LTFS solution for MSL6480, makes sharing and accessing data simple.
• HP TapeAssure Advanced software makes the MSL6480 easy to manage from any location.

In the words of Danny Holland:

"The nature of the digital cinema business makes scalability extremely important. The HP StoreEver MSL6480 Tape Library design allows us to easily add extra drives, media slots and expansion modules as required, delivering a non-disruptive scalability model that’ll generate significant savings over the years.”

So next time anyone scoffs that tape is dead or for companies that haven't yet embraced innovation in storage, invite them to learn about Brain Farm Digital Cinema.  I think it's a great endorsement that such a successful and pioneering company sees a clear role for tape in its digital workflow.  Such companies do not use technology out of sentiment.  It's because they feel the core benefits of tape are the best solution for their cutting-edge needs!

Andrew Dodd

Worldwide Marketing Communications Manager

HP Storage Media

Storage Media: Why tape storage is here to stay!

You may not consider tape to be an innovative technology, but perhaps it's time to think again. During the last decade, tape storage has witnessed massive improvement in terms of capacity and performance and benefited from continuous innovation in critical areas relating to cost, reliability and ease of use. Today, this evergreen technology can effectively address new data protection opportunities in addition to its traditional role as a backup device.

And, although it’s important to note that disk storage has made advances during the same period, tape’s progress has been more than equal to it.

First, let's set the scene with some important facts about the tape media business (source: Santa Clara Global Quarterly Backup Tracker Q4 CY14, February 2015):

1. Customers are using more tape storage than at any point in history – In Q4, the market shipped 6,638 petabytes of capacity on new low & midrange tape formats (LTO, DAT, DLT, AIT) – a record total!

2. LTO Ultrium is the most popular technology – accounting for 97% of those shipments in a market worth $117.6M. Hewlett-Packard is the leading brand in this category and has been since mid-2002. In particular, LTO-5 (3 TB per unit with 2:1 compression) and LTO-6 (6.25 TB per unit with 2.5:1 compression) account for 82% of total capacity shipped.

3. The cost of tape storage media is the lowest it has ever been - When LTO-1 was launched in 2001, it offered a compressed cost per GB of about $0.60. Today, LTO-6 offers a native cost per GB of less than $0.01, as recently announced by the LTO Consortium. To purchase 2.5 TB of HP tape media capacity in 2000 would have cost $3,125. Today it costs about $50!

So why does tape look set to remain so popular in 2015, for data protection in general, and archive in particular?

The answer lies in the on-going business value of the technology. It's not just about performance, capacity and usability, but also how technology can lower costs, reduce risks, and improve productivity within an organisation. From that point of view, tape continues to impress.

Low Cost of Ownership - Tape continues to offer one of the lowest costs per terabyte for any type of storage, especially when you consider energy consumption and carbon footprint, which both should be factored in for a true like-for-like comparison. When comparing the TCO of an LTO tape library and a disk array over a 9 year period, disk storage is 26 times the average TCO of tape. The cost of energy alone for the average disk-based solution exceeds the entire TCO for the typical tape-based solution!

Risk Reduction – A primary purpose of any backup or archive program is data retrieval and restoration. The LTO tape drives, libraries and media have great reliability and availability features such as hardware redundancy, path failover, proactive health monitoring software and data archive verification software. These help to ensure that data is always available and recoverable. Plus, tape cartridges can be easily and securely transported off-site so they are safe from security threats and cyber attacks that could occur without warning.

Productivity Improvements – As data growth increases uncontrollably, it's never been a more important time for businesses to effectively manage their backup and archiving infrastructure. Luckily, tape can be scaled almost effortlessly – it's just a case of adding more tape cartridges and tape expansion modules – and with very little additional cost. Meanwhile, innovative technologies like Linear Tape File System (LTFS), Tape As NAS (tNAS) and Flash And Tape (FLAPE) make tape even simpler to access, use and share.

So, in conclusion, tape is very much alive and should not be discounted as no longer being a key strategic storage technology!

Significant innovations have been made in terms of performance, higher capacity, power efficiency, improved reliability, ease of use and budget-friendliness. If you haven’t considered tape storage recently, you may want to take the time to do so (or have a second, or third, look!)

But tape today still has an amazing amount to offer.
For more information on tape today and in the future, contact your Westcoast Account Manager or why not take a look at our range of Storage Media that you can buy directly from our website? Click here