>> On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 15:24:12 -0500, Orville Lantto <orville.lantto AT 
>> GLASSHOUSE DOT COM> said:


> The killer feature of VTLs is data de-duplication, which is beginning to
> be available.


No, no!  An elephant is like a snake! [1]


The killer feature of VTLs is that it permits underutilized tapes with
just a few tracks at the head to occupy their true data size, instead
of the entire physical cartridge.

The killer feature of VTLs is that it permits you to offer as many
"tape heads" as performance will sustain, instead of being limited by
the number of physical objects you buy.

The killer feature of VTLs is that most of us work in or near shops
whose hardware purchase behavior is so ossified that we can leap four
generations of intervening tech, at which point the payoff is finally
compelling for the decision makers.


We're putting in a VTL for our mainframe that will replace some 20,000
3580 volumes with a measly 7TB of disk.  Whoosh!  bye-bye 8x 3480
drives and floorspace for ~10 racks.  Whoosh! bye-bye a few thousand
square feet of tape racks.


And once it's done, we can give our operators work that is a little
less mind-numbing than "Pick up the tape, insert the tape.  Pick up
the tape, shelve the tape".  Maybe even something interesting.


- Allen S. Rout


[1] http://www.jainworld.com/education/stories25.asp