Customers Attest to Exabyte's `Disaster-Tested' Tape Backup and Restore Products: `VXA Makes the Difference When Catastrophes Strike'

Business Wire, Sept 26, 2005

BOULDER, Colo. -- Businesses Find Disaster-Tested VXA Packet Technology Protects Their Valuable Data Even under Severe Conditions; New 'Disaster-Tested' Insignia Symbolizes VXA Products' Capabilities

Whoever suggested we not cry over spilled milk never lost valuable company data because of it. Untold numbers of businesses have been brought to their knees because their vulnerable backup drives and media were compromised by seemingly benign liquids, devastating power surges and other catastrophic events. But companies using Exabyte's "Disaster-Tested" tape backup and restore products have found that, while liquids may spill, tears don't have to.

"Disaster Tested" is a designation ascribed to Exabyte products with VXA Packet Technology. The designation does not come easily. Exabyte engineers, independent labs, and many customers have subjected VXA products to severe conditions, including violent vibration, immersion in volcanic dust, boiling water, hot coffee and soda -- even freezing them in solid blocks of ice.

"Exabyte has been 'disaster-testing' VXA products since they were first introduced," said Kerry Brock, Vice President of Marketing, Exabyte. "Our on-going disaster-testing programs are in place to ensure our products deliver the most reliable restore in tape -- and our new 'disaster-tested' insignia means that IT managers can have peace of mind that their data is going to restore when they need it most".

Because of this rigorous testing, businesses around the world have discovered that VXA fulfills its promise of extreme reliability when disaster strikes.

Disaster-Testing Pays Dividends for Austrian Bank

Exabyte customer Raiffeisenlandesbank Karnten, a bank in Austria, suffered a catastrophic flood following extremely heavy rains. After high levels of water inundated its data center and rendered its server hard drives useless, an urgent restore was required. Even though their VXA tape drives and tapes had also been submerged in water, the stored data was completely readable. Following a restore procedure, the bank was able to resume operation without any loss of data -- all within just a few of hours. "I am very impressed that the VXA Packet Tapes were able to restore all of our data even after having been flooded with water. It is apparent to me that Packet Technology really makes a difference in tape drives," stated Hellmut Maggauer, who is responsible for Purchasing, Sales, and Service at Raiffeisenlandesbank Karnten. "The tape technologies we had used before were prone to breaking down, and we were looking to reduce the number of service calls needed." Exabyte's VXA paid high dividends to this Austrian bank.

Soda Soaking No Match for VXA

Even if companies take extra precautions to fend off the forces of Mother Nature, human error can be a major cause for concern, as Jackson Ball of BTU Source recently discovered. "I picked up our server on Friday night, took it home, did a full DR backup set and proceeded to delete the SCSI array and data to recreate a necessary partition," stated Ball. "Then disaster struck. My son dropped a glass of soft drink, and soaked the VXA tapes and DR disks. I dried off what I could and popped in the tapes -- and successfully restored every file from the tapes. There was plenty of sweating bullets, fervent prayer and gnashing of teeth. It went flawlessly. The server was back online Monday morning. It went so well that I purchased another Exabyte VXA tape drive for another facility."

VXA Restores Data after Electrical Storm's Wrath

One of the most feared events is an unexpected power surge that abruptly ends the life of computers and peripherals. Ansin Technology Group recently fell victim to a dangerous surge brought on by a powerful lighting storm. "We had a bad thunderstorm, and a hard drive with critical data was zapped by lightning," stated Leonard Ansin of Ansin Technology Group, Inc. "We have surge protectors, UPSs and more. However, the storm knocked out the hard drive on our main server. Thankfully, our VXA Packet Drive had survived the storm and had completed its backup procedure. We replaced the hard drive, restored the data and were quickly back up and running. The data on the drive was critical to our business. VXA saved the day."

VXA Packet Technology Key to Product Reliability

The key to Exabyte's unmatched ability to withstand such extreme conditions lies in its patented VXA Packet Technology. Unlike conventional tape drives, which write data in continuous tracks thousands of bytes long, VXA Tape Drives write data in flexible, efficient packets. VXA Packet Drives can read these packets one at a time, in any order, even if the tape is warped or distorted, and then put them back together in its data buffer to rebuild the original data. Coupled with VXA's sophisticated 4-level Reed Solomon hardware error correction -- the most advanced in the industry -- VXA Packet Drives can restore data that would be lost by other tape formats.

"Disaster Testing is our extreme method of testing to ensure customers can restore 100 percent of their data, 100 percent of the time," Brock added. "VXA Packet drives, autoloaders and cartridges are the only tape storage products with VXA Packet Technology that enables a 4-level Reed-Solomon Error Correction Code (ECC), making data 180 times more likely to restore than competitive tape formats -- even from a damaged tape."