Data General Unveils Next Generation DLT Tape Array; DLT Array Series Now Offers Twice the Speed with Fault Tolerant Design

Business Wire, Sept 27, 1999

WESTBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 1999--

Data General Corporation today unveiled the next generation of its high-availability DLTtape Array product line. The DLT Array 7000+ combines Data General's fault tolerant chassis design with Quantum's robust DLTtape drive technology and third-generation tape array controller design from Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Ultera Systems to create a cost-effective, leading-edge solution that meets the most demanding data management requirements for ultra-reliable storage.

The DLT Array 7000+ subsystem meets an increasing market demand for higher-performance solutions, with outstanding performance that doubles the available transfer rate to 40MB/second with up to 280 GB of compressed capacity.

"Data storage today is beyond mission critical; it's business critical," said Jim Geronaitis, manager of AViiON storage marketing for Data General. "Data General has been a leader in delivering the benefits of tape array technology to its customers worldwide, and with the DLT Array 7000+ we can offer an even more powerful solution for high-reliability, high performance tape storage. Our customers rely on our DLT Array technology to protect their most vital information and ensure trouble-free business continuity."

"Data General customers have long benefited from the investment protection, reliability and performance of its DLTtape based solutions," said Bill Boles, vice president of marketing, DLTtape division at Quantum. "DLTtape technology is an ideal complement to the well engineered design of its newest offering, the DLT Array 7000+."

"Data General has been a strong advocate of tape array technology solutions to overcome the performance and reliability limitations of conventional tape backup solutions," said Fred Bedard, vice president sales and marketing at Ultera Systems. "Clearly Data General continues to listen to its AViiON and CLARiiON customers and now has delivered the next level of high performance and availability features required to support their backup requirements well into the new millennium".

Current Data General AViiON users can easily integrate the power of the DLT Array 7000+ into their existing tape backup architecture as it provides 100 percent transparent support for AViiON NetWorker, the Data General-specific version of Legato NetWorker. This allows AViiON customers running under DG-UX and NT to migrate to tape array technology with no changes required in their backup software. All DG/UX and NT systems are "NetWorker Ready," and include AViiON NetWorker for both stand-alone backup and client/server NetWorker backup. AViiON NetWorker is fully interoperable with other versions of NetWorker.

"From the early versions of AViiON NetWorker to the recent announcement of CLARiiON SANbackup(TM), Data General and Legato have built a strong partnership that has enabled thousands of new users to reap the benefits of Legato-DG data protection solutions," said Kent Smith, executive vice president, strategic alliances at Legato. "The DLT Array 7000+ takes data protection to the next level and attests to Data General's engineering talent by producing an elegant and highly-reliable storage solution."

DLT Array 7000+

The exceptional reliability and performance of the DLT Array 7000+ is based on the innovative RAIT (Redundant Array of Independent Tape) architecture enabled by Ultera's controller technology. The array supports a variety of configurations through a single Ultra-SCSI-3 host connection to precisely meet customer requirements based on cost, performance and availability parameters. The array supports both RAID-1 -- with data mirrored across one or two pairs of drives -- and RAID-3 operation where data and parity information are striped across three or five DLT7000 drives, while taking advantage of the aggregate bandwidth of all tape drives, to create data transfer rates of up to 144 GB/hr.

The RAID-3 mode provides corporate customers with a failure-resistant tape solution that can withstand a DLT drive or media failure and continue backup or restore operations with no loss of data or interruption of service. To further enhance system reliability and fault tolerance, the DLT Array 7000+ incorporates N+1 cooling fans and optional N+1 power supplies.

Data General's new DLT Array 7000+ is currently available in deskside and rackmount configurations with two-, three-, four and five- drive configurations. The new tape array is supported on all Data General AViiON(R) Intel-based servers running DG/UX(TM) as well as Windows NT Release 4.20

About Data General

Data General (NYSE:DGN), based in Westboro, Massachusetts, is a major supplier of storage and enterprise computing solutions for customers worldwide. The company's products include CLARiiON Fibre Channel storage systems, high-end Windows NT and UNIX AViiON servers, and related software and services. The company reported fiscal 1998 revenues of $1.5 billion. Additional information on the company, its products, and services is available on the Internet at www.dg.com.