IBM LTFS Enterprise Edition V1.1

Enables policy management of tape as tier in GPFS environment

IBM LTFS  Enterprise Edition is designed to enable policy management of tape as a storage tier in a GPFS environment, helping encourage the use of tape as a critical tier in the storage environment.

LTFS EE can be used as an operational storage tier accessible by disk-based applications. Using LTFS EE to replace disks with tape in tier 2 and 3 storage can improve data access over other storage solutions as it improves efficiency and streamlines management for files on tape.

It can play a major role in reducing the cost of storage for data that does not need the access performance of primary disk. By replacing tier 2 and 3 disk storage with tape, organizations can achieve a new operational efficiency and cost effectiveness compared to the cost of equivalent disk-based environments. It simplifies the use of tape by making it transparent to the user and manageable by the administrator under a single infrastructure.

LTFS EE supports IBM LTO Ultrium 6 and 5 tape drives, as well as TS1140 tape drives installed in TS3500 tape libraries.

With the release of LTFS EE, software maintenance renewals for LTFS EE can be automated through a services contract. Feature number 9000 must be included on the software maintenance registration Product ID (PID) to indicate the desire to participate in this auto renewal process. Auto renewal services are not available in all countries or for all initial software maintenance contract terms.

Orderable per node
For the installation of first node, purchase one per-install license. For the installation of additional nodes for meeting the scale-out requirement, purchase one per-secondary-node license for each additional node in the same LTFS EE cluster.

Key prerequisites
LTFS EE software is generally supported with these OSs, but some functional enhancements are only supported with selected OSs: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.2 x86_64, SLES 11 SP1 x86_64.

LTFS EE software requires:

• GPFS
• TS3500 Tape Library

LTFS EE supports mixed environments and any combination of these drive types can be used in a LTFS EE environment and the supported media respectively.
The following list contains drive IDs for the currently supported LTFS EE:

• Ultrium Gen 6
• Ultrium Gen 5
• TS1140 Tape Drive

Planned availability date
June 14, 2013

WW External Disk Storage Market Grew 0.6% in 1Q13

Slowest Y/Y growth since 4Q09

Worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage vendor revenue totaled $5.5 billion in the first quarter of 2013, a 0.6% increase from revenue of $5.4 billion in the first quarter of 2012.

The first quarter 2013 results represent the 14th consecutive quarter of revenue growth, however, facing the strong headwinds of a morose global macro-economy, the 0.6% increase is the slowest year-over-year growth rate since the fourth quarter 2009.

EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) and NetApp beat the year-over-year market growth rate in the first quarter.
 
Despite a negative revenue performance by EMC's midrange portfolio, EMC gained share based on the strength of its high-end VMAX, which grew 11.5% annually.

Leveraging its year-end fiscal quarter, Fujitsu's focus on its Eternus-branded ECB disk storage products in EMEA beat market growth in all segments of the block-access market.

In a reversal of historic patterns, HDS gained share in 1Q13 based on the performance of its midrange offerings, in particular the HUS Series and Hitachi Content Active Platform, while its high-end VSP fell short.
 
Noting that clustered Data Ontap is gaining increased traction within its installed base and as a competitive alternative, NetApp displaced IBM as the second-largest ECB disk storage vendor in the first quarter of 2013.

Dell, HP and IBM continue to underperform the market and lose share for fundamentally the same reasons. Their new product Y/Y revenue gains are insufficient to offset the Y/Y decline of the products being replaced. Moreover, Dell may be suffering from organizational and structural issues that are hampering sales. HP continues to struggle with balancing the decline in what it classifies as 'traditional storage' with its growing 'converged' go-to-market models. IBM's strategy of emphasizing its IP-based disk storage products is gaining traction, but is not yet strong enough to offset declines in technology sourced from NetApp.

On a regional basis, EMEA remains in the grasp of a recession and grew only 1.7% in the first quarter of 2013 . North America suffered from a deadlock between its executive and legislative branches of government, which impacted growth in the quarter. AsiaPac macros, particularly in China, are losing luster, which slowed growth to 1.7% in the first quarter of 2013.