Feature Story

Smarter Storage

Sun recognizes that the value of data changes over time. However, many enterprises are without the infrastructure and policies required to move the data to more cost effective storage as its value declines. Sun recommends a balanced, tiered storage infrastructure that allows for data mobility and aligns the cost of storage with business objectives. Intelligent, dynamic, tiered storage infrastructures can bring a dramatic improvement to many data centers and enable organizations to retrieve archived data quickly and efficiently when business conditions change and archived data moves back to the forefront.

Tape storage is greener and more cost-effective than disk storage. Because disk platters spin continually, each bit of stored data consumes energy. Tape cartridges, on the other hand, only consume energy when data is accessed. Tape uses less power, requires less cooling, and occupies less floor space. Tape libraries also outlast most other storage technologies by two to five times, adding to their eco-friendliness. This aspect is especially important to enterprises whose industries require them to store date for years or even decades

Sun virtual disk storage solutions can virtualize multiple systems into a common pool that can be managed from a single interface. System utilization improves and data volumes can be moved transparently to lower-cost or more power-efficient systems as needed. Sun's Storage Archive Manager (SAM) intelligently moves data from primary disk to secondary disk to tape transparently, according to pre-defined policies.

Sun's virtual tape solutions dramatically improve the speed and efficiency of backing up data by presenting a virtual tape library to the server, which is really a disk system. And because Sun's virtual tape solutions are designed to interoperate with our broad portfolio of tape libraries, you can enjoy the benefits of disk-based backup without losing the value of tape.

Because each data center has its own unique challenges, Sun has developed proven methodologies and a variety of storage services to help you assess your current storage consumption and help you improve it without sacrificing the service level your organization expects. Sun's portfolio of virtual storage technologies includes primary disk, tiered disk, tape, virtual tape, and secure archive solutions.