[also from Gus]
Dell grew its server business by 27% and its external storage business by 46% in the most recent quarter. External storage is now $375M a quarter with Clariion probably accounting for around 20%.
Dell also sells tape libraries from ADIC. Dell accounted for 18% ($61M) of ADIC's FY2002 (ended October 2002) sales of $338M and that percentage will most likely be higher this year. EMC already supports all the tape library vendors such as Sony, Spectra-Logic, ADIC, Overland, Exabyte, Quantum, Storagetek and IBM; but, ADIC is now the undisputed mid-range tape library champ and its existing relationship with Dell may tip the scales in its favor as EMC rolls out its tape strategy as part of its information lifecycle strategy.
Again, note the subtle line of attack on the IBM and StorageTek high-end tape library oligopoly: If you restore from disk and you back-up to disk and your fixed content is on disk the you don't really need a high-end tape library based on proprietary tape drives from IBM or Storagetek because a mid-range library based on standard tape drives can perform what are essentially long-term passive archiving tasks.
Tape products are also on the Hopkinton, Mass., company's road map, he said. "What we're working on now is deciding whether to partner here or to resell," he said.
There will not be an acquisition for that, Tucci added, in a separate interview.
eweek.com
Here's a snapshot of the hybrid disk/tape products in the pipeline.
Vendors to combine disk, tape libraries for storage management, backups
The virtual tape would use serial ATA disk arrays logically tied to tape libraries
by Lucas Mearian
August 14, 2003
In the wake of new government regulations requiring better corporate record-keeping, three top tape library vendors have confirmed that they are working to combine inexpensive disk arrays with their libraries to bolster backup reliability and data restoration.
Advanced Digital Information Corp. (ADIC), Storage Technology Corp. and Spectra Logic Corp. are each developing products that would use serial ATA disk arrays physically and logically tied to tape libraries to consolidate storage management, speed backups, increase redundancy and guarantee the fast restoration of mission-critical data.
ADIC said its combination disk/tape library will be available this fall. Spectra Logic said its model will be available early in 2004......
...........ADIC's Otis said his company plans to develop hardware that allows a straight-through process from backup to archive that doesn't affect the application server
computerworld.com.
EMC and Dell are probably going to outsell everybody in the ATA-based system market. With that kind of hardware footprint, it is highly likely that EMC will continue to outsell everybody in the storage management software market so EMC's moves in the tape market -- particularly the way it intend to couple a tape-based archive to their ATA-based systems -- are going to be very consequential to the industry.
Right now also, Maxtor is practically the only drive vendor selling ATA drives in volume, but, all the US drive vendors are expected to have their serial ATA drives out at around the same time next year so the this market of the market is really going to take off....with the lucky tape library vendor(s) along for the ride.<g>
Who was it who said that luck is the residue of design? |
