Tape Storage

By  Larry Coyne (lcoyne@us.ibm.com)  and Khanh Ngo (khanhn@us.ibm.com)
                                     
IBM Spectrum Archive is part of the IBM Spectrum Storage software portfolio. It’s designed to address data storage inefficiencies by changing the economics of storage with a layer of intelligent software. Through IBM Spectrum Scale's tiering capabilities, this archive stores every bit of data at an optimal cost, helping maximize performance while ensuring greater security. With the power of IBM Spectrum Archive, users can take advantage of the air gap provided by tape and gain much faster access to data assets¹.

No need to spend time and resources finding a video of the solution. Now, you can try a free live interactive demo of IBM Spectrum Scale with IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition (EE) to learn and evaluate how this automated archival solution can meet your business needs. Just connect to the fully configured demo system in the IBM Cloud and access IBM Spectrum Archive EE with a virtual tape library environment from IBM Solutions Client Experience Portal (ISCEP) or IBM Training. The access and authentication are automated, so the virtual tape environment in the IBM Cloud is available anytime and anywhere and without the need for any extra software or configurations.

Access the IBM Cloud virtual tape lab from Mac, Linux, or Win 10 laptops/computers. 

The demonstration environment provides the procedures to:

• access your lab environment
• verify the current IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition configuration
• perform migration of files from IBM Spectrum Scale to IBM Spectrum Archive and recall them
• see the statistics and status of tape cartridges and files
• run a tiering policy to migrate data from disk to tape

The free course IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition Fundamentals & Lab Access contains the introduction class for IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition and the access to the virtual tape lab environment.

Instead of saying, "Show me." you can say "Hey, I can try it myself!"
Just connect to the IBM Cloud and try IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition to learn about data archival "Hands-on" with a virtual tape library. Select one of the following links:

• IBM Solutions Client Experience Portal (ISCEP)
  Getting Started with Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition
• IBM Training
  IBM Spectrum Archive EE Fundamentals & Lab Access

 "This is cool stuff. Where did it come from?"

Here are the highlights of the collaboration to get us to the IBM Spectrum Archive EE demo in the cloud:

• 2016- IBM Spectrum Archive Development (Tokyo) needed to demo without a tape library for customers. They created a customer download for the Marketing website.
  Collaborated with Redbooks team to publish “How to” Redpaper*
• 2019- Khanh Ngo, STSM, IBM Spectrum Archive Development, put the demo in the IBM Cloud
• 2020- Development, Redbooks, and Course Development created a class with the virtual tape environment in the cloud
• 2021- Set up separate IBM Spectrum Archive demo hosted in the IBM Cloud and accessible from ISCEP (IBM Garage for Systems, IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software)
• *2016 - April 2021 - IBM Redbooks for IBM TS4500, IBM Spectrum Archive EE, IBM Open Tape Libraries, and Ready-to-use Virtual Appliance have had over 98,000 downloads

Related IBM Redbooks publications:    - IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition V1.3.1.2: Installation and Configuration Guide, SG24-8333 - IBM TS4500 R7 Tape Library Guide, SG24-8235  - Ready-to-use Virtual Appliance for Hands-on IBM Spectrum Archive Evaluation, REDP-5384  - IBM Tape Library Guide for Open Systems, SG24-5946