Safe storage information is a problem familiar to most modern enterprises, when resolving it, the question always arises: how to obtain a high-quality result with relatively low costs? Storing documentation in electronic form ensures not only its safety, but also its unhindered availability in real time.

For long-term and reliable storage of archival information in electronic form, various types of information carriers are used. The main requirement for such media is the exclusion of the possibility of physically making changes to the archived data or deleting them. The information carrier must provide a one-time write and at the same time be able to read information multiple times. These requirements are met by a WORM type - Write Once, Read Many (write once, read many times). Other basic requirements for storage media include durability and maximum storage capacity for archived data.

Hard drives.

The use of hard disks allows you to organize the so-called "online" storage of archived data, which provides constant on-line access to archival documents... The core of such storage is a multi-tier archive storage architecture, in which frequently requested archive data is stored on "fast" hard drives with external interface Fiber Channel (FC) or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), and rarely requested archived data are stored on "slow" hard drives with external Serial ATA (SATA) and NL-SAS interfaces.

There is an opinion that backup systems are a burden for the IT budget, and for the IT department, so to speak, an extra headache. But ... Manufacturers of data storage systems (DSS) on hard drives of all levels still recommend using tape backup systems as part of such solutions, with the help of which a copy of data is created, from which, in the event of a storage failure, it can be restored data.

Tape media.

The main purpose of tape media is to create backups operational data (backup). On the basis of tape media, you can also organize archival storage of information. Tape solutions provide near-line access to archived information. The core of this solution is a robotic tape drive. Today, the volume of data storage on a single tape medium in the LTO-5 format is 1.5 TB (3 TB with data compression). Therefore, data storage systems on tape media are used for reliable storage of information in large amounts of archived data. These solutions also have a number of serious disadvantages. Tapes are demagnetized, torn, it is necessary to constantly rewind the tape in cartridges, to search specific file it takes a lot of time while the tape in the cartridge is rewound to the desired place, the fragility of the media forces you to periodically transfer data from the old tape to the new tape. When organizing off-line storage, cartridges with archived data must be stored in rooms with certain environmental requirements or in specialized cabinets.

Optical media.

To organize long-term storage of archived data, it is necessary to use optical drives. Such drives ensure that all the requirements for archival storage and archival data storage are met. High reliability, long terms storage of archived data, contactless work with media, authenticity and immutability of archived data, fast random access to archived data, high capacity of optical media, organization of off-line storage of archived data are important parameters when choosing optical media.

By far the most popular optical recording format is Blu-ray, which provides a high archiving density of up to 100 GB per optical media. Hardware support for WORM allows storage recorded on optical media, archived data that cannot be deleted or changed later. And the "open" recording format of the UDF type allows reading archived information in any device that supports working with such optical media. The main task is to store rarely requested and unchanged archive data. Practice shows that the volume of such data makes up about 80% of the total volume of data stored on the operational (on-line) storage. Moreover, 20% of this archived data will never be in demand. By sending such data to archival storage based on optical media, the Customer can free up to 80% of the storage volume on the online (on-line) storage, which will entail a reduction in the volume and size of the backup "window".

Optical media solutions provide near-line access to archived information. The volume of storage of archived data in a drive on optical media and the number of reading devices are determined in accordance with the terms of reference. Various types of building archival solutions are supported, up to the "mirroring" of archive data between geographically distributed drives on optical media. Contactless work with optical media eliminates the possibility of damage to the working surfaces of optical media. Provides backward compatibility with previous types of optical media such as CD / DVD. When organizing archival data storage on the basis of an optical drive, you do not need to create backup copies of this data.

Advantages and disadvantages

Hard drives

Online access to archived information
Arbitrary access to archived information
The popularity of the solution
High power consumption
Expensive solution
I want to back up archived data
Minimum "terms" of life (maximum 3 years)
If the mechanical part of the hard disk fails, it is almost impossible to recover the data.
Not intended for off-line storage

Tape media

Large volumes of archived data storage
High speed of recording information on tape media
Low power consumption
High total cost of ownership
The minimum "terms" of life (on average up to 5 years)
"Closed" format for recording information on tape media
Low read access time (minimum 5 min)
Loss of information upon exposure electromagnetic radiation
Possibility mechanical damage (tape break)

Optical media

Non-volatility of optical media
The storage period of archived information is from 50 years
Hardware WORM Support (Archive Immutability)
The ability to organize off-line storage of archived data
"Open" recording format (UDF) on optical media
Low total cost of ownership
Low power consumption

Conclusion

Most experts in the field of building archival solutions agree that for archival storage of information with the possibility of online access to it, it is best to use a multi-level structure of archival data storage. The main criterion in choosing a solution should not be cheapness, but the mechanism for storing and protecting archived data, which is implemented in this solution. Before making the final choice, it is necessary to check all equipment and software for compatibility.

November 5, 2013 at 05:44 PM

Tape is still the leader in data backup

Information Security ,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Blog

For a long time we haven't talked about the classic data backup systems - tape libraries. After all, whatever some storage vendors say (focused solely on disk devices), tape libraries remain the most important backup and long-term archiving medium. In 2012, a survey was conducted of North American CIOs about their plans for tape use. So, 87% confirmed that they will increase their use, or at least keep it at the same level. Who is the leading manufacturer of tape libraries? According to storagenewsletter.com, HP is in the lead, selling 31% of devices in 2012, almost twice the size of its closest competitor. Despite the fact that HP supports DDS and LTO standards, today we will only talk about the latter, because LTO sales account for 94% of all drive types.

In 2013 the lineup has changed a lot compared to last year. First, at the end of 2012. A new generation of LTO-6 drives was released, which made it possible to more than double the capacity of one cartridge compared to LTO-5 - up to 6.25TB (including compression), and the write speed increased almost one and a half times - up to 1.44TB / hour. All of this allowed for a significant increase in storage density, while the cost per terabyte decreased.

With the fifth version of the Ultrium standard became available file system Linear Tape File System (LTFS) on tape media. This file system allows you to work with LTO-5 and 6 cartridges on external tape drives as USB device (flash memory) and with external drive... LTFS uses the first tape tracks for the file system index.

An exclusive feature of HP Ultrium tape drives — a system for comparing and adjusting the tape write speed to the incoming data stream — allows the device to dynamically and continuously synchronize its speed with the data transfer rate from the server. This feature improves the speed at which data is read and writes to tape and improves the reliability of both the drive itself and the tape cartridge. The reliability of the drive and cartridge is also ensured by a special mechanism for automatic positioning of the cartridge during loading and a mechanism for automatic cleaning of the read / write heads.

Another new useful functionality - this is proprietary utility HP - TapeAssure. It improves the efficiency of tape library and cartridge utilization by proactively monitoring the health, performance, utilization and health of drives and backup tools. This software is available for free download.

HP sells both standalone drives (they can be installed in special rack shelves) and tape libraries. Tape libraries are designed for automated data backups. Using multiple tape drives at the same time increases library performance and reduces the time required to write and read backups. Libraries are equipped with external SAS, SCSI, or Fiber Channel interfaces for simultaneous connection to multiple servers and SAN integration.

The range of automated backup products includes devices entry level: Autoloader 1/8 G2 autoloader and MSL2024 and MSL4048 tape libraries, MSL 6480 mid-level tape libraries and ESL-G3 enterprise tape libraries.

The autoloader only supports one tape drive with sCSI interface, SAS or FC and only has 8 tape slots.
MSL series libraries (including models: 2024, 4048, 8048, 8096) can already support multiple tape drives (with SCSI, SAS or FC interface) and have significantly more capacity due to the increased number of slots.
Models MSL8048 and MSL8096, as well as the EML line, are discontinued and replaced new model MSL 6480, which was announced in the summer of 2013. and supports scaling up to 7 modules within a single rack. Each module supports up to 6 half-height drives, up to 80 cartridges, up to 240 TB (1: 2.5 compression). Installing 7 6480 modules in one server rack, you can get up to 42 drives per rack with a total cartridge capacity of up to 3.5 PB and write speeds of up to 60 TB / hour

HP StoreEver MSL Tape Libraries

MSL libraries support the ability to create multiple virtual libraries (partitions) within one physical device... You can also combine two MSLs into one logical library to increase capacity and performance using a special mechanism installed in the tape drive slot.

Hi-End class libraries - ESL-G3 - have only case design in separate modules (cabinets). These libraries can be scaled horizontally, that is, using special mechanisms, you can combine up to 16 modules into a single library. Such a single library will have a common tape pool available to any tape drive, regardless of which of the individual ESL-G3 library modules it is located in.

The ESL-G3 library can support up to 12 tape drives and up to 306 slots in the control module. The expansion module supports up to 12 tape drives and up to 444 slots. In its maximum configuration, the ESL-G3 library can support up to 96 tape drives and over 11,000 slots. ESL-G3 only support FC interface - 4 Gbps or 8 Gbps.

The ESL-G3 is highly available with tape drives, redundant fans and hot-swappable power supplies. In addition, ESL-G3 libraries support the ability to reserve access channels to both streamers and the library robot.

In June 2013, High Density Expansion Modules were announced for ESL-G3 models, containing up to 780 cartridges. With these expansion modules, the number of supported slots has almost doubled from 7100 to 11,600, which is equivalent to 72 PB of data (including compression). This density was achieved thanks to a change in the design of the modules - now the slots are located on a rotating drum along which the robot glides. The robots in the ESL-G3 library now operate in Active / Active mode (in previous Active / Passive models), which has increased the performance of the library.

Thus, the updated lineup of HP tape libraries is perfect for organizations of all sizes - from small office to corporate data center.

Many companies use tape archives for long-term backups and backups of the most important information. It's easy to understand them: a fairly cheap, simple and reliable method of storing data, which has been successfully used for many years - the shelf life of a cartridge is 2-3 decades, a lot of information fits into it, a streaming backup is written faster than on classic disk systems, in other words: why change something, if it suits you?

Storing backups and backups on disk systems is expensive and inefficient, and you do not need to restore anything from a backup so often, so the overall slowness of the system is of little concern.

Fortunately, the world does not stand still, technologies are developing, and today VTL (virtual tape library) has already caught up with tape archives in terms of cost of ownership, many times exceeding them in a number of other parameters. Let's figure out what the tape is going to cover, and isn't it time to switch to disk libraries?

Tape VS Discs

A tape archive is undoubtedly a reliable and easy way to protect information, but it is not devoid of disadvantages that directly arise from its tape nature, mainly these difficulties are associated with recovering small files:

Significant data search time;
One application can load one drive 100%, creating problems for backup for other applications; *
Impossibility of simultaneous reading and writing if all drives are busy with something (you need to wait for the complete completion of the operation);
The complexity of quality control and correctness of the recording.

* note: solved by competent software capable of multistream recording.

The disk array is devoid of all these disadvantages:

Searching for data on a hard drive is hundreds of times faster than on a tape, which you want to find in the archive, bring, insert into the drive, rewind, start reading;
VTL can emulate dozens and hundreds of drives at a time: parallel copying and recovery of data for multiple applications without increasing the cost of system ownership;
High reliability of data storage: server hard drives have been working in the most severe conditions for years, the load of the VTL system is not very wear-out for them. In addition, all data is copied inside the VTL itself and is protected using a RAID array, which increases both the reliability of data storage and the complexity of unauthorized access to it: even if several hard drives are stolen, there will not be any real integral information on them.

HP StoreOnce D2D Backup System Benefits

If I were asked to briefly describe all the advantages of disk backups, I would not hesitate to answer: speed, reliability, scalability and flexibility.

With speed, everything is clear: reading and writing individual files tape is much slower than conventional hard drives. Disk systems have been evolving for a long time, are used not only in servers, but also in ordinary desktops, and a wealth of experience has already been accumulated to speed up everyday operations. We also considered reliability in the previous paragraph: RAID-6, physical immobility of hard disks, no need to transfer or store them in the form in which cartridges for tape systems are stored (a cartridge can also be physically stolen during transportation, for example). But I am sure there are questions about scalability and flexibility, and now I will try to answer them.

Scalability

I propose to consider the issue of system scalability using an example HP StoreOnce B6200:

The base system contains two controllers and two disk shelves with a total capacity of 48TB. Each controller can manage four shelves, packed to capacity with hard drives up to 2TB each. Up to eight such controllers can be connected (3 pairs in addition to the two available). Thus, the B6200 will provide up to 768TB of raw capacity (due to the RAID system, the usable capacity is less than a third, but 512TB is still an impressive figure), while its performance grows as the storage volume grows.

In this case, you yourself are free to choose according to which scheme to expand the functionality of the system: first, increase the volume to the limit, and then increase performance, or evenly purchase controllers with disk shelves to increase performance, and, if necessary, increase the storage volume by installing additional disk shelves ...

Flexibility

Specialized software is responsible for the widest backup capabilities - HP Catalyst... HP Catalyst is a software agent that installs on a media server (media server) that runs HP DataProtector or Symantec NetBackup and Backup Exec backup software. HP Catalyst deduplicates data directly on media servers using the functionality of this software and sends the deduplicated data to the HP StoreOnce system. This allows for high backup speeds as multiple media servers are capable of handling much more stream than a single dedicated target device. For example, the top-end HP B6200 system can write data with deduplication at speeds up to 40 TB / hour, and using HP Catalyst - up to 100 TB / hour.

The main difference between HP Catalyst and most analogs is that it works not only over LAN, but also over WAN. Thus, in small regional offices it is possible not to install the dedicated HP StoreOnce library, but only to install the backup software on the HP Catalyst + media server. Next, the deduplicated backup will go to the HP StoreOnce library in central office or a large territorial office. This allows multi-branch organizations to organize centralized backup management and consolidation at minimal cost.

If you use only hardware, then for geographically distributed organizations, the consolidation of a backup looks like this. In branches, there are entry-level libraries - HP 2620, and in the center - an older model, for example, the HP 4430 or B6200. The branch backup is written to the HP StoreOnce Backup System and already deduplicated data (20 times less than the original) is transferred to the center, where it is written to a large library. Deduplication of replicated data significantly reduces the cost of communication channels. A single HP B6200 collects data from 384 branch offices, and the entire network is managed by a single administrator, eliminating the need for backup administrators at branch offices. This scheme is very popular in the world, and the largest installation of this kind in Russia already has about 100 HP StoreOnce devices and continues to grow.

We already have a tape backup, where do we go?

We do not urge you to completely abandon the time-tested technology: you can install HP Store Once as an intermediate link between user systems and a long-term archive, which will reduce the waiting time for daily backup, perform a partial backup of changed parts of large files without completely overwriting the tape array, speed up work for backing up and restoring data, and writing to tape everything that can be useful in the long term and does not require frequent access.

Data.

Advantages and disadvantages

The technology of data storage on magnetic tape has undergone significant changes in the course of the development of computer technology, and in different periods it was characterized by different consumer properties. The use of modern streamers has the following distinctive features.

Advantages:

large capacity;
low cost and wide storage conditions for the information carrier;
stability of work;
reliability;
low power consumption of a large tape library.

Disadvantages:

low speed of random access to data due to sequential access (the tape should scroll to the desired location);
relatively high cost of the recording device (streamer).

Basic recording methods

There are two basic methods of recording information on tape in streamers:

linear magnetic recording;
italic-line magnetic recording.

Linear magnetic recording

With this recording method, data is written to the tape as multiple parallel tracks. The tape has the ability to move in both directions. The magnetic reading head is stationary during reading, just like the writing head during writing. When the end of the tape is reached, the read / write head moves to the next track and the tape starts moving in the opposite direction. The technology is essentially similar to a consumer audio recorder. It is possible to use several heads that work with several tracks simultaneously ( multitrack streamer). IN modern devices this method dominates.

Italic-line magnetic recording ("Helical Scan")

If this method is used, then the block of recording-reproducing heads (BHPV) is placed on a rotating drum, past which the mechanism pulls the tape, during reading and writing. In this case, the recording is carried out in one direction. Depending on the recording format used, the tape passes around the BVG at a certain angle, and the axis of the BGZV cylinder itself is also inclined at a slight angle to the tape. The tape moves in one direction when writing-reading. This method recording assumes the presence of oblique tracks on the surface of the tape. A similar technology is used in VCRs. The slant-line method was invented to achieve a higher recording density than the linear method, without the need to reduce the head gap and increase the tape speed (however, these technical limitations have now been overcome with the linear method).

History

Magnetic tape was first used to record computer data in 1951 at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation on a UNIVAC I computer. The carrier was a 12.65 mm wide strip of nickel-plated bronze (called Vicalloy). The recording density was 128 cpi (198 micrometers / symbol) for eight tracks.

9-track tape

The widespread adoption of tape has been associated with mainframes and, in particular, IBM mainframes. Beginning with the IBM System / 360 family, introduced in 1964, IBM adopted the 9-track tape standard with linear recording, which later spread to other manufacturers' systems as well and was widely used until the 1980s. In the USSR, this standard of magnetic tapes absolutely dominated, thanks to the use of tape drives of the ES computers family, including in computers of other architectures.

Audio cassette

At home personal computers In the 1970s and early 1980s (up to the mid-1990s), in many cases, an ordinary household tape recorder or, occasionally, special devices based on it with automatic control (for example, the Commodore Datasette) were used as the main external storage device. This technology was not sufficiently adapted for computer needs, but it was very cheap and available for the home user (since many of them already had an audio recorder themselves). For industrial PCs, streamers were used, such as TEAC MT-2ST with CT-500H, CT-600H 50 and 60 MB cassettes, respectively.

DDS technology

LTO technology

LTO cartridge

Currently, the market is dominated by streamers conforming to the LTO (Linear Tape-Open) line of standards.

The LTO-5 TS2350 streamer presented by IBM is equipped, in addition to two sAS interfaces, also with an Ethernet interface. However, at present (June 2010) this interface cannot be used; it is declared reserved for future firmware versions.

IBM 3592 technology

In 2015, these same companies broke the world record for tape recording density, reaching 123 billion bits per square inch (about 19 billion bits per square centimeter). Thus, the capacity of a standard 10cm cartridge can reach 220 terabytes.

In 2017, IBM Research announced another record density record - 201 gigabits per sq. inch (slightly more than 31 gigabits per sq. cm.), bringing the possible cartridge volume to 330 terabytes

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The wound core is installed in a metal housing that acts as a magnetic shield and is filled with resin. A hole is made in the housing where the working gap is located to ensure contact between the head and the tape recording medium.

The most important operation is mounting the crystal to the frame pins. A feature of the method is the ability to create automated equipment that can quickly and accurately feed crystals and tape to the mounting area.

For a copper carrier, as well as for aluminum, when layers wetted with tin solders (for example, Ta - Ni) are applied to the beam leads, the leads are connected by group soldering, for purely aluminum leads - by sequential welding of each lead. The productivity of the mounting operation with polymer carriers, if inferior to the productivity of mounting with the flip chip method, is nevertheless 5-7 times higher than with conventional wire mounting. When using tape carriers, the electrical contacts are 7 to 10 times stronger, the operator's influence is excluded, and therefore the reliability of the connection operations increases 2 to 3 times.

The choice of polymers for tape carriers is quite wide, but polyimide is, with the exception of cost, the most suitable material, since it allows the operation of thermocompression and eutectic soldering of silicon with gold at a temperature of about 673 - 723 K, provides high mechanical properties. When assembling cheap circuits into housings, Mylar or poly-ether-glass fiber composition is used. The assembly of LSI and VLSI on tape media, which went through a full cycle of tests and control checks before their installation on the board, is increasingly being used not only in the IEA special purpose, but also in equipment of wide national economic significance.

The production of mass electronic equipment is automated. This applies to the production of both elements and printed circuit boards. In production, the method of assembling ICs on a tape carrier with group welding of leads is used. It is based on the use of a lead frame etched from copper tape foil and applied to a perforated synthetic (poly-liimide) film with a width of 8, 16, 35 or 70 mm. Crystals from the IC are automatically fed to the tape, and the lead frames are welded to the contact pads of the IC. Thus, the productivity of the IC assembly is achieved 1 - 2 thousand per hour.

Resistance to thermal shocks is due to the closeness of the thermal expansion coefficient of the polyimide film and the aluminum base, the elasticity of the film, which compensates for the difference in thermal expansion coefficient of the film and silicon crystal. Unpackaged LSIs are mounted directly on a polyimide film and attached with MK-400 glue. An example of a familiarity on a polyimide board for mounting a frameless LSI on a tape carrier (see Fig. 1.20) is shown in Fig. 8.89, a.

Implementing a Capacity Management Process will help prevent both unnecessary investments and randomized capacity changes, as the latter aspect can have a particularly negative impact on service delivery. Currently, the cost of IT depends not so much on the investment in the capacity of IT assets, but on the management of them. For example, excess capacity increase disk memory affects backup to external tape media, as it will take longer to search the archived files on the network. This example illustrates an important aspect of the Capacity Management Process: good Capacity Management is probably the most important factor to change the perception (and reality) of the IT organization: not as a group increasing overhead costs, but as a service provider.

Such a large discrepancy in the nomenclature of accounting units adversely affects the unification of the accounting of funds, especially on an international scale. In this regard, all over the world, there is an intensive search for unified standard accounting units. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1974 proposed to consider as standardized units volume (for books, brochures, periodicals, manuscripts), roll (for tape media), physical unit (for flat microforms), as well as the area occupied by works seals and manuscripts on library shelves.

When organizing arrays like RAID 1 or RAID 5, the need for archival data storage is not excluded, the point is that in the event of a disk failure, the system can continue to perform basic functions. But in reality, in all variants, prompt replacement of the faulty element is required. For ABIS, such efficiency, from our point of view, is not so significant. The State Public Library for Science and Technology SB RAS automated system archiving data to tape. The recorder - the Ultrum 215 streamer from Hewlett Packard - provides recording to tape cartridges from 100 to 200 (compression mode) Gb. The archive formed in this way guarantees relatively quick recovery as information resources and user data, and recovery of system drives.

Open-frame micro-assemblies are usually mounted on a heat-dissipating metal cell base or individual metal busbars. The dimensions of micro-assembly boards are from 16X7 5 to 48X30 mm, the step of their installation depends on these dimensions. On printed circuit boards (as well as in microassemblies and hybrid microcircuits), leadless ceramic crystal holders or crystals of open-frame microcircuits can be installed. Such dies can be supplied on tape, which is a base on which a sealed die is mounted and a connection pattern is applied that provides the connection between the PCB and the die. Before installation, a part of the tape with the crystal and connections is cut out and then installed on the board. The use of tape media greatly facilitates wiring automation, especially when a high pin count connection is required.