Thanks, SF.
"It was related to me that IBM system engineers at the IT confernece also requested a drill down demonstation thru the 812 unit (12.4 Terabytes is 16 seconds) and were very impressed by the success of the technology and hardware."
Interesting. IBM already supports DST via HPSS (supercomputers) and their Oil and Gas storage software product. Considering how the video content of databases is going to increase exponentially with faster processors and faster networks, I wouldn't be surprised if IBM is looking around for a quality helical scan recorder to round out its product line, which currently consists of linear recorders like Magstar.
This is really the gaping hole in IBM's lineup. Even IBM's main competitor, StorageTek, has Redwood, a D3 helical scan recorder with specs inferior to that of DST.
If Ampex can strike some kind of joint development deal with IBM re: the 19mm storage products, that would be a major coup. It would allow IBM to go after markets like broadcasting that they can not target because of the limitations of its product line. It would also allow little Ampex to bootstrap its operations to IBM's global network.
More intriguingly, it would allow Ampex to share the development costs of a new scanning recorder combining the reliability and lower cost profile of a linear serpentine recorder like Magstar and DLT with the superior scaleablity of the top of the line helical scan recorders like DST, Redwood, and DTF.
This is the scanning recorder that Gooch was working on from which KM was unbundled.
patent.womplex.ibm.com
This makes the Roger Wood association with KM more interesting. Roger Wood is a signal processing heavyweight who is now at IBM and who was part of the team at Ampex in the early eighties that introduced PRML, a read channel technology that only now is being widely used in the disk drive industry, into magnetic recording via the DCR data recorders that were used exclusively in the SR-71 Blackbird spy planes.
But then again, it could just be engineers just being engineers, merely marveling at a well-made piece of equipment. |
