30 minute interview

“Tape will still be a preferred choice for storage”

StorageTek bets on its tape library technology to push its products in the price-sensitive Indian market

Angel Garcia Corporate Vice President, International Operations, StorageTek

*How are storage vendors changing their product portfolio to meet the needs of enterprises?

Most storage products have to not only keep pace with the explosion in data volume but also be capable of intelligence. Storage companies have to ensure that their products have a structured way of storing data. They need to have intelligence to take automatic action in compliance with regulatory laws prevalent in different countries. Companies have to find ways to manage their burgeoning e-mails cost-effectively by moving data to less expensive media such as tape. The compliance trend is in a way related to globalisation. Even medium-sized businesses today have international orientation. It is not just a concern, but a business requirement now.

*Why do you think intelligence is important for a storage product?

Data is growing at the rate of 40 to 70 percent year-on-year. The more the need for data retention, more are the ways of storing it. All data is not treated equally in terms of storage and retrieval. An example in this regard is that of a bank. From a user perspective, a transaction is just a piece of paper, but to the bank, it’s a critical piece of data. Additionally, there may be some physical device that is counting the number of people walking into a branch. Every time a person is counted, there is a record that is created and an account that will be updated. This second piece of data obviously has a different relevance than the first one, which has information about your bank deposits. So, corporates will not need to put it in a expensive, high-performance disk system to store such information. Most of it is stored on tape and that’s where we fit in. We believe that tape will continue to be the preferred choice for storage.

*The SL8500 library system has been a area of focus for your company. How does this product fit into the current market scenario?

While data is exploding, IT budgets are still flat. The need of the hour is to find a way to manage data growth without adding IT resources. The SL8500 library system is the industry’s first tape library which allows a CIO to consolidate enterprise infrastructure scattered across the organisation. Consolidation is easier as the system can be shared across different backup applications. Our ‘Any Cartridge Any Slot’ technology makes accessing different media simple. You can add and remove tape drives without any downtime.

*What type of enterprises will adopt this library system?

In India, we see the government adopting the system as they have huge records of data which will be needed for infinite periods of time. Telecom is another big segment. A huge database containing data about millions of customers is critical to companies operating in this space. Globally, the manufacturing industry, weather forecasting agencies, the pharmaceutical industry and companies in the chip design space are adopters of this system.

*What is unique about the Indian storage market and how is it different from other markets?

India has attributes such as distributed computing solutions that customers look for. They are also looking at cost-effective but efficient solutions. Also, the Indian market likes technology and there is good demand for the latest technology solutions. We have been bringing innovative products into the market for the last 35 years and we’ve been doing it with Fortune 500 companies around the world. Given the challenge that companies have to face in India, I think that we can bring our experience in storage that goes beyond simply selling a disk system. We have been manufacturing and designing these systems for many years and have all the technology answers.

Sushma Naik