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Technology Stocks : Ampex Corporation (AEXCA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam Citron who wrote (6250)	3/15/1999 9:50:00 PM
From: Ed Perry	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17679

A repost of a post from Yahoo AXC Institutions have already bought 8% of Ampex, ....[March 12 99 17:40] by: COUNTBUGULA 5137 of 5202 Fidelity Investments increased its holdings in Ampex substantitally during the last few months and First Boston Credit Suisse has taken a sizeable first stake during the same time period. Credit Suisse is especially noteworthy because they tend to lean toward the conservative side of the risk spectrum. I would suggest to you that the signals significant maverick institutional participation! As for Byrne, his record speaks for itself. Things look pretty good, so far! Looking for an interesting week ahead. Kind regards to all. **************************************************************** Sam: Your comments and participation on this board are much appreciated. The skeptical point of view is most valuable. I'm sure that your keyboard will be busy. Ed Perry

To: Sam Citron who wrote (6250)	3/15/1999 10:41:00 PM
From: HPilot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17679

There is more ways to become a standard than to have big bucks. Microsoft didn't start out with the big bucks. One way is to start with a nich area and work from there. Read the following article. ampex.com From that article: Because both outfits are equipped with Ampex 410 library systems, they are able to transfer very large files quickly and reliably. So easily, in fact, that Ted Fay, senior technologist at VisionArt, "would like to see DST tape cartridges become the interchange format for production file exchange in the movie business."

To: Sam Citron who wrote (6250)	3/16/1999 1:45:00 AM
From: Hal Campbell	Respond to of 17679

datamation.com From that article .... <<Regardless of which tape technology you adopt, in most cases the key performance parameter for libraries is the data transfer rate of the drives. There are other performance factors--mostly related to the robotics and tape loading mechanisms --but those are usually dwarfed by the time it takes to transfer data. Because most tape applications (more than 80%) are just off-line backup operations, as opposed to on-line or near on-line data access, consultants recommend focusing on transfer rates if performance is a key requirement. For 7x24 global shops that have rapidly shrinking windows of time to perform their backup operations, the speed at which they can back up data has become increasingly important. But be aware of potential snags when comparing data transfer rates. For instance, the speed at which tape drives run depends in large part on whether the host system feeds the tape library at a sufficient rate. Overall performance may be more dependent on factors such as host CPU speed, disk-drive speed, the I/O channel, bus overhead, the operating and file systems, and software performance. If the host system can't feed the tape drives at their rated speed, the drives have to continually stop and start, causing lower performance and potential reliability problems. The data transfer rate may still be your key criterion even if you're using a tape library in a near on-line environment. That was the case at AT&T's Pricing Analysis Laboratory (PAL) in Basking Ridge, N.J., which processes and analyzes more than 2 billion phone call records per month. Instead of putting all of this data on disk drives, which would have been prohibitively expensive, AT&T uses high-speed tape libraries from Ampex (http://www.ampex.com) in conjunction with less expensive digital linear tape (DLT) libraries. AT&T chose Redwood City, Calif.-based Ampex's high-end 19mm helical scan tape drives--called Data Storage Technology (DST)--because the company needed premium transfer rates to perform timely analysis of data for adjusting the prices of its phone rates on an ongoing basis. "Our tape drives have to keep up with our multithreaded servers [a Sun UltraEnterprise 2000 and a 22-CPU 6000], and the only way to keep them fed is with very fast transfer rates," says Steven Antos, division manager at AT&T's PAL facility. AT&T is currently getting transfer rates of 12-13MB per second from DST, which is about three times faster than popular digital linear tape drives. With host-level changes, the company expects to hit 20MB per second--a transfer rate that rivals many disk drives. For less performance-intensive applications such as sample runs and tertiary backup, Antos uses the slower (and cheaper) DLT drives. Of course, there's a large up-front cost for products such as Ampex's tape drives that are based on high-speed technologies. Libraries that use 19mm helical scan technology can cost more than $500,000, although prices may drop in the future if the technology gains more commercial acceptance, according to Freeman Associates. For now, Ampex's 2.4TB DST 412 library costs $160,000, and its 12.8TB DST 812 with four drives starts at $320,000. "It is pretty expensive, but disk would still be a lot more expensive," says Antos, "and disks require higher maintenance and they go down more often than tape." ......Don't be confused by the vendors' bewildering array of reliability metrics, such as mean time between failure, mean time to failure, failure interval, and so on. After all, the bottom line is 7x24x365 reliability. AT&T's Pricing Analysis Lab, for example, has been running Ampex's 19mm tape drives for more than two years and has not experienced a single failure. Such solid reliability is one reason why tape storage is an attractive alternative to disk for many applications. In fact, IS shops have found cost savings in implementing a mixed storage strategy consisting of both faster (but more expensive) disk drives and slower (but cheaper and more reliable) tape libraries--sometimes with HSM software. "We brought in the libraries to stop the growth of DASD," says Pemco's Sterling. "It was a cost-avoidance move." // Now.this was all written in Datamation some time ago.( Ampex tech has improved.) At that time only a few companies needed that breed of performance. The number is finally growing for obvious reasons and one can only assume that all of the new concerns that need rapidly accessible, reliable, huge storage capacity in a fairly small space ( 21sq feet and down) will come to the same business decisions that AT&T, and Industrial Light and Magic and CNN and Kodak etc. etc have reached.