Quantum DLT 2000 Handbook page 83

is the need to gain control of their rapidly expanding information
storage resources. The world of the mainframe is probably gone
forever. We now live in a world of distributed computing
resources, heterogeneous system environments, pervasive
Internet/Intranet influence, and sky's-the-limit application size.
The growing demand for more storage capacity among UNIX and
PC LANs, coupled with shrinking backup windows, has led to a
strong move toward recentralization of network computing power.
One of the key ways data managers are meeting this challenge is
through the use of backup automation in the form of tape stack-
ers, autoloaders, and libraries. By creating a centralized network
backup system, using automated storage management, network
managers can eliminate many of the scenarios that keep them
awake nights.
Applications For Tape Automation
As with standalone tape drives, the market for tape automation
systems is predominantly focused on backup, archiving, and
restore, the bread-and-butter of tape storage. Until computers can
be built that eliminate human error, this will probably always be
the number one application for tape storage systems.
Hierarchical storage management (HSM) is picking up momen-
tum among high-end installations. HSM systems are used to man-
age large, critical databases and near on-line storage, and are not
true backup systems. If it's truly critical that an application or data
be kept a key stroke away, a larger disk drive is increasingly the
solution used most often.
Other applications for tape automation systems include: near on-
line storage, archiving, data collection, remote vaulting, tape
arrays, and image and video storage and distribution.
QUANTUM DLTtape HANDBOOK 8.3