Disk users looking to add Tape back into their storage infastructure

OVER TWO THIRDS OF DISK-ONLY USERS LOOK TO ADD TAPE BACK INTO STORAGE INFRASTRUCTURE ACCORDING TO RECENT SURVEY

Survey Data Suggests that Most Companies Surveyed Are Migrating to a Tiered Storage Infrastructure of Disk and Tape Deployments

SILICON VALLEY, CALIF. — (March 12, 2008) — HP, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corporation, the three technology provider companies for the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program today released survey results that strongly suggest that storage customers that use a disk-only infrastructure are now looking at tape storage technology as part of a tiered storage infrastructure to support backup and archiving. Over two thirds of surveyed businesses said they were looking to add tape storage back into their overall network infrastructure and of those respondents, over 80-percent plan to add tape storage solutions within the next 12 months.

The survey, which was taken in the fourth quarter of 2007, focused on the views of more than 200 network administrators and mid-level tech specialists at mid-size to large companies throughout the United States.

"The integration of tape storage into a tiered information infrastructure is highly strategic for customers, due to its low cost of ownership, low energy consumption and portability for data protection," said Cindy Grossman, Vice President of Tape Storage Systems, IBM. "LTO tape technology is a perfect choice for enterprise and mid-sized customer with its proven reliability, high capacity, high performance and ability to address data security with built-in encryption and data retention requirements for the evolving data center."

According to the survey, 58-percent of the respondents use a combination of disk and tape for long term archiving, 24 percent use tape exclusively, and 18-percent employ a disk-only approach. In this group, 68-percent of the current disk only users plan to start using tape for long-term archiving, and over half (58-percent) plan to add tape for short-term data protection.

"The survey findings suggest that disk-only users may be experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse," said David Geddes, senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard Research, who oversaw the study. "We found that a wide majority of companies that employ purely disk-based approaches are looking to quickly include tape in their backup and archiving strategies.

LTO tape technology delivers the backup and archiving features needed by today’s storage administrators, including high capacity, blazing performance, 256-bit drive-level encryption for data security and WORM cartridge support to address data retention needs. With low energy consumption, tape technology can also provide organizations with a green alternative for the data center. Studies have shown that tape-based backup and archiving solutions can deliver substantial TCO benefits and energy savings

The LTO format is a powerful, scalable, adaptable open tape format developed and continuously enhanced by technology providers HP, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corporation (and their predecessors) to help address the growing demands of data protection in the midrange to enterprise-class server environments. This ultra-high capacity generation of tape storage products is designed to deliver outstanding performance, capacity and reliability combining the advantages of linear multi-channel, bi-directional formats with enhancements in servo technology, data compression, track layout, and error correction.

The LTO Ultrium format has a well-defined roadmap for growth and scalability.