New Bus-Tech Mainframe Data Library Model 100V

Bus-Tech, Inc., supplier of data center connectivity products, announced the introduction of the Mainframe Data Library (MDL) model 100V.

The new model is positioned to add mainframe connectivity to the leading distributed systems VTL vendors’ offerings and provide data centers with a single backup vehicle for both mainframe and distributed system server environments. Doing so simplifies data backup for the enterprise, takes advantage of the VTL’s deduplication capabilities and reduces the overall cost associated with data protection.

Interoperability was confirmed based on testing at Bus-Tech’s laboratory in Burlington, Massachusetts. As part of the certification process, the MDL-100V was tested with the industry leading VTL vendors’ products for three key measurements: connectivity/functionality, read and write performance and deduplication effectiveness where applicable. The combined solution underwent stress and functionality tests to help ensure users can perform normal tape processing without any changes to their existing applications or JCL. The MDL-100V provides a cost effective solution for using disk for mainframe and open system backup and recovery.

The following VTL products were included in the testing: The EMC’s Disk Library, FalconStor Virtual Tape Library, Quantum’s DXi 7500 and the Sepaton S2100-ES2.

“With companies in today’s economic climate looking at ways to reduce cost, the ability to combine mainframe and distributed systems into a single converged data protection scheme should be attractive to a wide range of data center managers,” said Bus-Tech President Al Brandt. “Partnering with the industry leading VTL vendors ensures consistent and standard support of mainframe data in a converged enterprise backup process.”

“FalconStor’s collaboration with Bus-Tech serves customers in distributed systems and mainframe environments by allowing them to attach FalconStor Virtual Tape Library (VTL) to mainframes via Bus-Tech’s Mainframe Data Library product line,” said Bernie Wu, vice president of business development for FalconStor. “For FalconStor and its channel partners, this provides a large opportunity for VTL deployments, helping us further our industry leadership in Totally Open VTL solutions.”

“We are very excited to bring this combined solution to our enterprise-class datacenter customers,” stated Mike Sutkowski, vice president, Worldwide Channel Sales for Sepaton. “The combination of the S2100-ES2’s scale-out architecture and Bus-Tech’s mainframe data protection solutions provides customers unparalleled performance and scale for both mainframe and open systems environments.”

The MDL-100V connects to the VTLs as a server via dual fibre channel. The MDL-100V is available with either FICON or ESCON mainframe channel attachment and emulates up to 32 tape drives (3480/90 and 3590) on the mainframe. As the mainframe writes tape volumes to the MDL-100V they are passed directly through to the VTL. Subsequent vaulting of the data is a function of the specific VTL.