Re: LTFS and ugly ducklings: It is not your fathers tape solution
Tape is not disk, anyone who says different is pulling the wool over your eyes. That does not mean that an open-standard for putting data on tape that allows customers, vendors of software and IT professionals to retain data for a longer period of time without worrying about retaining a DB of file locations, is a bad thing.
The arguments:
- Tape is slower than disk - spot on, transactional data is not viable on tape.
- Tape at a local consumer level is an overkill - absolutely! Take a pro-user with 60TB of videos or picture and ask them to spin the disk.....
-LTFS has no data verification - Not true. Not only do modern tape drives do read while write verification, but they also support end to end CRC checking that can have block based verification run against it at anytime.
- If the tape is stored offline there is no way to know where a file is located - True, except LTFS is so easy to develop applications to that it is easy to create a catalog, reference a start up 1Delta ( www.1delta.net ) that has a catalog application that is light weight and works with any filesystem device.
Unlike traditional ISVs, if the catalog is ever lost or destroyed, a simple mount of the LTFS cartridge reveals every directory and file on the media.
LTFS is in its infancy, but has already gained traction with vendors and developers creating solutions to meet more modern data movement and access requirements. As with Linux early on the open source does leave some support questions, but major vendors such as IBM and HP offer full support for LTFS and the solutions they have developed around LTFS.
Is it really a slight to those companies that have been working to improve the tape usage that IBM came forward with a new tape usage/format and then allowed anyone and everyone to use/develop to it for free!?
It is still tape, if a exception happens during the write of data it does require a recovery of the filesystem, but as with any product there are tools for that.
If you want massive storage at a proven lowest cost and longer retention/upgrade paths, tape has always been the choice. LTFS allows the data to be easily accessed by an application when the data is in a cold state and rarely accessed but supporting an ISV infrastructure to get data in hours rather than minutes is not a choice.
It is not your fathers tape usage scenario.
**Disclaimer: I am an employee of IBM and the views here are my own not the views or position of IBM
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