Digital announces industry's most complete storage management solutions for Microsoft Windows NT

Business Wire, Jan 20, 1997

MAYNARD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 20, 1997--Digital Equipment Corporation today expanded its leading portfolio of Windows NT solutions across the enterprise with new and enhanced storage management solutions. These enable customers to manage, store, protect, and backup their data in distributed Windows NT environments.

Today's introduction includes:

o An enhanced version of Networker Save and Restore for Windows NT -- the most complete storage management software for Windows NT environments;

o The world's most scalable digital linear tape (DLT) drive, and enhanced automated DLT library support;

o The world's fastest 4mm digital audio tape (DAT) and autoloader; and

o A new 12X CD-ROM, three times faster than previous versions.

"As more and more customers commit their mission-critical applications and data to the Windows NT environment, departmental backup solutions are becoming increasingly important," said Dave Coombs, vice president of Worldwide Storage Marketing for Digital.

"The new StorageWorks backup products represent the most sophisticated storage management software on the market and the highest capacity backup devices. They offer significant productivity gains to customers who use the Windows NT operating system."

Enterprise-Wide Storage Management for Windows NT

Networker Save and Restore for Windows NT, Digital's leadership network storage management application, includes new features that offer users greater choices for backing up and protecting widely dispersed data throughout an enterprise. It is the only networked storage management software that scales to 500 clients in a Windows NT environment.

The software, which supports Digital's StorageWorks tapes, autoloaders, and libraries, enables customers to manage multiple DLT libraries as a single unit. They can manage up to five DLT libraries for a total of 52.8 TB of backup storage.

In addition, Networker Save and Restore for Windows NT software is designed for use with Microsoft's BackOffice suite of software products. The server edition supports Windows NT version 4.0. Digital is also announcing a new NetWorker Archive module that delivers advanced file-level archiving to off-load long-term storage. "Networker Save and Restore is a total storage management solution, allowing customers to manage most of the systems and devices in their enterprise -- from PCs with single tape drives to multi-server networks with multiple tape libraries," added Coombs. "The software offers more performance and functionality than most Windows NT-based backup utilities that are unable to protect critical data on remote systems."

New Digital Linear Tape Drive and Multiple Library Support

Because DLT is recognized as the most cost-effective backup technology in the industry, Digital is expanding its offerings with a new DLT drive and support for multiple DLT libraries.

The DLT drive can store up to 70 GB of information per cartridge, 75 percent more than the previous drive could handle. Native transfer rates of up to 5 MB per second or 18 GB per hour meet or exceed the requirements of most high-end workstations, network servers, and departmental or workgroup systems.

"With the new DLT drive, some customers will be able to back up a week's worth of information on a single cartridge, and back it up faster than ever before," said Coombs. "The drive lowers the cost of both attended and unattended backup and addresses customers' needs to back up an increasing amount of data in a constantly shrinking window of time."

In addition, Digital's DLT Tape Libraries are available with software that enables up to five libraries to act as a single unit. These automated libraries, with appropriate software such as Networker Save and Restore, can access up to 52.8 TB of storage backup.

Multiple DLT libraries, which can store high volumes of data at a low cost per MB and without human error, are ideal for Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM), imaging, multimedia, archiving, near- and on-line storage, and unattended backup applications.

Industry's Fastest 4 mm Digital Audio Tape Drives and Autoloaders

Because many customers with small- to medium-sized computing environments have more data to back up than ever and are on tight budgets, Digital is offering a new 4 mm low-cost DAT drive and autoloader. With transfer rates of up to 775 KB per second native and up to 1,550 KB per second compressed, the new drive and autoloader are the fastest in the industry and provide twice the performance of competitors' products.

The DAT drive is especially designed for file, print, and application servers, workstations, and data centers. It provides 4 GB native capacity and 8 GB compressed capacity and is available in tabletop and StorageWorks system building block configurations.

The new autoloader is designed for unattended backup and archiving applications. It provides up to 64 GB of capacity, supporting up to eight cartridges in a single magazine and enables backups of up to 8 GB of storage in less than 1.5 hours.