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	The future looks sticky A research group in Germany has written 10 gigabytes worth of data to a roll of tape -- Scotch tape. Yep, traditional old transparent adhesive tape. While it's still too soon to trade in your V17 tapes for the stuff in your desk dispenser, it provides a fascinating glimpse at future laser technology allowing data points to be created on optical material with dimensions less than 1µm (1/1000mm) [full article]

VXAdata E-Mail Newsletter
July 2000

FEATURE STORY:
Getting The Most Out Of Your Tape Drive
Special Guest writer: Eric Ullman, Dantz Development Corporation

Can you make, and trust, incremental backups? Not just to one set of tapes, but to multiple sets, keeping each one complete? Can you restore a system exactly from incremental backups, in just one simple operation?

If you didn't add high quality backup software when you got your new hardware, you're only seeing some of the advantages of your drive. [Read Eric Ullman's Article...]

Other Software Reviewed Recently
Network Computing Magazine did a lab test of Veritas, ArcServeIT, Legato NetWorker 5, and Hicomp Software Systems, using a mixed client group of Windows, Linux, and Novell. Not tested, but worth looking into, Dantz Retrospect.

Quoting from Network Computing:

We lab-tested four enterprise-backup products using a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 server with Service Pack 6a and clients loaded on Novell IntranetWare 4.11, Red Hat Linux 6.2, SCO UnixWare and Windows 98. The tests entailed backing up and restoring files across a 100-Mbps switched Ethernet connection.

Veritas Software Corp.'s Veritas Backup Exec 8.0 for Microsoft Windows NT/2000 captured our Editor's Choice award. It combines a manageable user interface, the ability to quickly reconfigure jobs and schedules to accommodate necessary changes in the backup scheme, detailed reporting functions and thorough yet easy-to-assimilate documentation coupled with an extensive online support database. [Full review at Network Computing...]

VXA News

New! Canadian Web Sales The Ecrix Web Store can now offer direct sales to Canadians. End-user and reseller sales, and any special promotions are now all available to the Great White North.	New! V10 20 GB Tapes If you thought the V6 12GB tape was not enough, and the V17 33GB was too much, now you can get the V10 20GB tape. Brand new, same high-quality AME formulation.
Media Packs Now available exclusively from the Ecrix Web Store, 5-packs and 10-packs for V6 (12GB), V10 (20GB), and V17 (33GB), with savings over individual tape list price.	Retrospect Bundles Retrospect Desktop Backup software now available as an optional bundle with the VXA-1 internal and external drives. Dual-platform CD with software for both MacOS and Windows.

Online Backup: B2B Bonanza or DotCom Fizzle?
They may have had a noisy launch with tons of media attention, but @Backup evidently had a business plan that sank like an obese poodle with a lead collar.

"@Backup recently changed its name to SkyDesk as part of a retrenching of its corporate strategy. Since then, SkyDesk has been looking for big-name customers to validate the need for online backup." [full article from CNET News]

They should of asked us: We're firm in our commitment that the best backups are executed locally by the people who have the most to gain, or lose, from a data disaster. Heck, we even get feedback from people who don't trust their OWN company's IT department (almost as much feedback as we get from IT professionals who can't trust their users).  Do you think there's any need for online backup? Let us know.

My Lawyer is Bigger than Your Lawyer
Can Veritas software read backups made by Computer Associates (CA)? Veritas says "sure," CA says "not likely..." and is putting up a $10,000 challenge to Veritas to prove it. It's a great test - they send Veritas a tape with 100 MB of data, and give them four hours to restore it and find a particular piece of data.

Considering how horrible most tape drives are at reading data written by another drive, I'd say CA can safely keep that $10,000 and get a great comedian to play their summer picnic. [full article at Excite News]

NAS Spelled Backward Is SAN...
In the last issue of VXAdata, we included a bit about the "War on Wall Street" where analysts are trying to figure out the storage future: Networked-Attached Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Networks (SAN)s? SCSI over IP or Fibre Channel? Here's another article on the same topic, an analyst report in News.com.

Why are we flogging this information at you? Because in addition to the Wall Street hype, it's also marketplace FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt): vendors pushing technology that doesn't exist, companies announcing products they can't possibly produce or support. Or, as this analyst puts it: "It's too early to compare technology that doesn't exist with technology that works today."

"A debate has been raging on Wall St. over which technology will enable networked storage: Will the backbone be Fibre Channel (FC) or is it Ethernet with Internet Protocol (IP); Will storage area networks (SANs) destroy the emerging network attached storage (NAS) market or vice-versa? As often happens, this debate isn't as prevalent on Main Street, where data suggests that customers are using Fibre Channel at an accelerating rate to implement storage area networks, while sales of network-attached storage is booming. As I wrote in a previous column, the explosive growth of data is creating increased demand for storing and managing all the data." [full article at CNET...]

Qualstar Goes Public
Storage automation company Qualstar added their four-letters to Nasdaq on June 22nd. Congratulations guys! The stock went out at $7.00 per share and is now at $8.875 (July 12). Nice showing for a volatile month.

Qualstar designs, develops, manufactures and sells automated magnetic tape libraries. Their tape libraries span capacities from 200 gigabytes to more than 26 terabytes of native (uncompressed) storage capacity in several popular tape formats.

And, they make a library featuring VXA Drives! [Qualstar VXA Library]

TAPE IS DEAD - LONG LIVE TAPE!
The CEO of EMC, Mike Ruettgers, is often quoted in the media on the future of storage. His latest prediction, delivered at the Network Storage 2000 conference: "Tape is dead."

Reporting on the event, Sonia R. Lelii of eWEEK wrote: "The technology, (Ruettgers) said, is not a good solution for backing up and restoring data. Asked at one point what EMC tells its customers is a better solution for backup, Ruettgers replied there is none."

It must have been tempting for Ms. Lelii to take the quote out of context to say: "EMC chief says there is no better backup solution than tape."

Like the combustion engine, we continually face critics who claim our days are numbered. And, in theory, they may be right: There's got to be a better solution some day. But let's face some reality here folks: You don't back your files up in theory, you back them up right now.

Well, actually a lot of you don't back them up at all. Talk to me about that, people. I'll make you a great deal on a tape drive.

Pundits have been predicting that tape would "go away" for twenty years or more. But, as Mark Twain put it: "Reports of [our] death have been greatly exaggerated." [Full Story...]

Don't Forget...

VXA Sweepstakes Sign up for this month's sweepstakes, and get a chance to win a VXA Tape Drive! We've added more and more drives to the prize pool to keep the odds at one in 500. [Go...]	VXA Promotions E-mail Find out about special deals, discounts and rebates on VXA Products. To subscribe to this monthly e-mail, go to our subscribe page.
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