It’s tape. But not as we know it. LTO technology meets HPE GreenLake.

[StorageExperts]

Introducing HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries. Learn how this can help you achieve more visibility and control over your archival storage and other data protection processes where tape can be used.

–By Andrew Dodd, HPE Storage Media

You may recognize the title of this article as a homage to a famous line from the popular sci-fi series, Star Trek: “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.” But did you know that even this oft-quoted phrase from Mr. Spock is itself a misquote?  It comes from a 1987 pop hit called Star Trekkin ‘ by British novelty band The Firm,[1] which paid affectionate homage to the original characters. The line about the weirdness of extraterrestrial lifeforms originated in the lyrics but has been subsequently misattributed to the classic TV series.

But like all the best urban myths, “It’s life, Jim…” has taken on a life of its own, which may explain why it came into my mind when I was thinking about how to introduce the subject of today’s blog: the new HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries. Because it’s tape, but not as we know it.

Deploy only what you need, pay only for what you use

The first thing to say is that the HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries is genuinely tape like you’ve never seen it before. It’s a radically new and unique way of deploying secure, scalable, and sustainable LTO tape storage for preserving long-term unstructured data or providing offline protection against ransomware threats.

Secondly, the fact that LTO tape technology is now part of HPE GreenLake Flex Platform confounds another urban myth – the one that says that tape is no longer relevant in today’s innovative storage landscape. Clearly nothing could be further from the truth because HPE GreenLake is not just the vision of how HPE regards the future of IT, but according to Antonio Neri, HPE CEO, it’s the future of how you will run your business.[2] And tape is now at the heart of it.

What’s special about this announcement?

So, what’s special about the HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries? Well, nothing and everything.

On the one hand, it remains a traditional automated tape library solution. It uses current tape components: the standard SKUs for HPE MSL libraries, drive kits, tape media, Command View for Tape Libraries (CVTL) software, Installation & Startup, Tech Care, and Complete Care services. But don’t be lulled into thinking there’s nothing different to see. This is a radically new and game-changing way of deploying and consuming a tape storage solution.

Although tape has a much lower long-term cost of ownership than flash or hard disk for long-term storage, the upfront cost of tape storage can appear expensive. In today’s hard-pressed times, the capital outlay required to purchase, upgrade, or significantly expand tape systems can be challenging for some organizations.

But starting on August 14, 2023, HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries makes CAPEX[3] headaches and tough budget choices a thing of the past. Flexible and scalable, it brings security, visibility, ease of management, and pay-per-use predictability to LTO Ultrium tape technology.

How does it work?

You can obtain tape as a service in three simple steps.

1. You agree up front the amount of capacity you are likely to require at the beginning of the contract.
2. HPE delivers and installs all the MSL tape solution components necessary, including media, installation, and services.
3. Thereafter, you pay a variable monthly fee, via HPE GreenLake, based on the amount of raw data that you write to tape, where usage is tracked, and charges calculated using metrics provided.

The significant difference is that you no longer need to worry about estimating your long-term tape capacity requirements and total investment up front. At the end of each month, you’re only billed for the variable data that you have written. The raw data unit of measure is calculated after any data compression is applied. As such, it could be a combination of native and compressed data depending on the application or workload.

A word about tape media which is handled differently from the other elements. You purchase media outright as part of your HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries, whether that's at the start of the agreement or later as your storage needs grow. For example, you might begin with a limited number of tapes to get started and then add more media capacity as your needs grow.

But, unlike the hardware, which belongs to HPE throughout the contract, the tapes themselves, like the data they contain, belong one hundred percent to you. You’ll always be able to purchase new HPE-branded LTO media at ultra-competitive prices but you are billed each month for the raw data written to those tapes wherever they are sourced from.

Complete control over scope and cost

Because this is HPE GreenLake, if you find that you need more capacity or higher performance, it’s easy to add library expansion modules, drive kits and media capacity through a simple change order to the existing contract. But the fundamental basis for charging does not change. You’ll still only pay for the Raw Data written regardless of how much extra hardware you provisioned the month before. This gives you maximum flexibility if projects or workloads change.

A practical example from the life sciences

Let’s take a practical example. A life sciences organization is involved in highly sophisticated research that uses exceptionally large biological datasets to study genomic architecture and understand the genetics of disease. The organization would like to use tape to preserve its valuable research content once the data is no longer required for the mission-critical aspects of the study. It also seeks to strengthen its cybersecurity defenses by creating an offline tape air gap.

The challenge is that the data volumes peak and trough depending on the different research workloads. While the team can be fairly confident of the amount of storage that might be required over a three-to-five year period, they can’t justify a CAPEX expenditure profile which might see much of their initial investment sitting unused for a long period of time.

HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries can help this organization balance their long-term data storage requirements, which may be broadly predictable, with the spiky and variable short-term requirements of their day-to-day operations. It can allow them to provide an immediate, targeted solution to their storage capacity requirements but without the heavy financial burden of having to purchase everything up front. And it does away with the risk that future CAPEX budgets might not permit future expansion if additional resources were delayed for a different budget cycle.

Boldly going where no tape has gone before

HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries can help you achieve more visibility and control over your archival storage and other data protection processes for which tape can be used. It lets you deploy a unique pay-per-use model and centralizes management and billing through the extraordinary flexibility of HPE GreenLake. It achieves this by harnessing the analytical insight of HPE Command View for Tape Libraries and using it to create entirely consumption-based, variable pricing.

The great news is that by taking away many of the challenges associated with tape procurement and deployment, your IT teams have time for more value-added tasks such as developing applications, launching AI/ML projects, and managing compliance, costs, and capacity.

You can create stronger barriers against the threat of cyberattack and make better use of primary and secondary storage by keeping the bulk of your important, but less frequently accessed, data on a more appropriate medium. By keeping data offsite and offline, you implement the 3-2-1-1 rule for greater protection from ransomware threats.

At the same time, you achieve these benefits without compromising your edge-to-cloud strategy – and by expanding the cloud user experience and operating model to the workloads and data that are best suited to the capabilities of tape storage.

So welcome to the HPE GreenLake Flex Solution for Tape Libraries. Learn more about it now.

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Meet Around the Storage Block blogger Andrew Dodd, HPE Storage Media

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE

[2] Antonio Neri: The Entire Company Inside GreenLake Is HPE’s Future, CRN Interview October 12, 2022

[3] CAPEX (Capital Expenditure)