Gator Architecture Enables High Availability Through Hot Swappable Drives, Power Supplies and Electronics Setting The Standard For Storage Density

BOULDER, Colo., — October 11, 1999, Spectra Logic Corp., unveiled its newest tape library architecture today at its inaugural Reseller Conference in Boulder, Colorado. Designed specifically for today's rapidly evolving storage environments, the Gator family allows users to take advantage of new storage architectures such as Storage Area Networks (SANs) and Network Attached Storage (NAS), in addition to Direct Attach Storage (DAS), SCSI-based methods. SAN and NAS environments allow users to share large automated tape libraries among multiple servers or networks making backups more reliable, more affordable and much faster.

Today's explosive growth in mission critical data is driving the re-centralization of storage throughout the data center. "Centralized backup and data protection are consistently identified as one of the greatest benefits that comes from recentralization", according to Michael Peterson of Strategic Research Corporation, (1998 Database Operating Practices Report).

"Our new Gator architecture marks Spectra Logic's entrance into high-end enterprise-class tape automation," said Nathan Thompson, Chairman and CEO of Spectra Logic Corporation. "With Gator, Spectra Logic has integrated our newest robotic design with our cutting edge interface products into a sharable, scalable product line for enterprise-class applications. The Gator's architecture will put us in front of the pack and serve as the foundation for a wide range of SAN and NAS products from Spectra Logic for years to come.

"Spectra Logic is totally focused on developing best-in-class tape library systems," said Thompson. "The progress we have made with our renewed focus after the sale of our Alexandria division to Sterling Software has been very exciting." The introduction of the Gator tape library architecture marks the company's first major product release since completing the Sterling acquisition last April. Configured with Sony AIT-2 tape technology, the Gator family provides storage capacities from 3 terabytes to more than 80 terabytes.

New Architecture

The Gator architecture is based on over a decade of tape library design experience and continues in the Spectra Logic tradition of offering incredible storage density, superior reliability, and a best-of-class user interface in a cost-effective robotic design. While all members of the Gator family were not disclosed, Spectra Logic did announce mid-range and high-end product offerings. All members of the Gator family carry extremely high storage density figures, maximizing drive and storage slot counts yet minimizing the tape library footprint. "Raised floor space in today's data-centers is increasingly becoming a scare commodity", Thompson said, "Our Gator library scales to over 80 Terabytes in a single 19" rack-mount enclosure, requiring only 3.7 square feet of data center floorspace."

Spectra Logic's Gator architecture protects the customer investment by allowing users to add tape cartridges, drive modules or change interface technologies as storage demands increase over time. The Gator families utilize hot-swappable drive modules, allowing users to add additional tape drives or upgrade to newer drive technologies, as they become available. "The scalable architecture of the Gator protects the return on my investment", said David Yaggi, Systems Administrator with Acuson. "The pricing and upgradability of these libraries makes them very attractive." Although initially shipping with Sony AIT technology, the Gator's hot swappable drive modules have been designed to accommodate other drive technologies such as Ecrix VXA and Exabyte Mammoth II in a mixed drive technology environment.

The Gator family includes a full color VGA touchscreen user interface; an extremely reliable robotic design based on an innovative picker mechanism, and a standard electronic barcode reader. The design's electronics have been engineered to accommodate high availability functionality as well as other intelligent maintenance capabilities such as SNMP and "phone home" diagnostics. Combined with Spectra Logic's remote Virtual Control Panel (VCP) application, users have complete control of the tape library from virtually any location. Adding or removing media is accomplished by means of a removable 15-element entry exit pack, which is accessed from the library's front panel. Each removable cartridge pack is equipped with an integrated dust cover, protecting media throughout on-site and off-site rotations.

Spectra Logic's Shared Library Services™ (SLS™) technology is the foundation for creating "logical libraries" in today's increasingly complex server environments. SLS allows a single Gator tape library to operate in shared environments with user-defined configurations of drives, cartridges and interfaces, including SCSI or Fibre Channel based Direct Attached Storage (DAS) architectures, new Storage Area Networks (SAN), and LAN-based Network Attached Storage (NAS) topologies. The integrated SLS interface controllers make Gator the most advanced tape library on the market today. The high-end model of the Gator Family allows users to configure up to 16 logical libraries. "Our SLS technology is based on intelligent Quad Interface Processors (QIPs)", Thompson said. QIPs are available in a variety of popular interface standards including: Low-Voltage and High-Voltage SCSI, dual port Fibre Channel, and soon, Gigabit Ethernet. "The flexibility of the QIP architecture allows our customers to custom configure their Gator to utilize today's most popular enterprise management strategies, all in one shared robot, without being limited by yesterday's architectures," Thompson said.

"We've seen an increase in the demand for centralized or SAN based storage architectures from our customers", said Ms. Stacy Schwarz-Gardner, Vice President of Professional Services with Integrated Archive Solutions. "The Gator will also be a great solution for customers housing their computing environments in co-locations since it will maximize space and performance. The Gator's SLS appears to have far superior library sharing capabilities when compared to other libraries in this class."

Availability

Gator tape libraries equipped with AIT-2 drives will be available in production quantities early in 4Q99. Entry-level Gator libraries start at $51,000 U.S. dollars (MSRP).

About Spectra Logic Corporation

Spectra Logic Corporation is a leading provider of high-performance, corporate-wide storage hardware products focused on data protection for the rapidly growing storage marketplace. Spectra Logic tape library products offer capacities from 60 gigabytes to hundreds of terabytes. The Boulder-based company's products operate on a broad range of platforms and operating systems. For more information, contact Spectra Logic by phone at (800) 833-1132 or visit the company's web site at www.spectralogic.com.

The Spectra Logic logo is a trademark of Spectra Logic Corporation. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

Contacts
Editorial Contacts:
Spectra Logic Corporation
Britt Terry
Director of Marketing
(303) 449-6400
brittt@spectralogic.com

Spectra Logic Corporation
Phil Fulkrod
Library Product Manager
(303) 449-6400
philf@spectralogic.com