Data Movement Solution Providers Claim Gigabytes-Per-Minute Performance
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Bus-Tech, Inc., a leading provider of data center connectivity solutions, has partnered with a number of well-known software vendors to provide customers with a powerful solution for moving data between mainframes and servers. Software products from Applied Software, Computer Network Technology (CNT), Panorama Software and Torrent Systems, in conjunction with Bus-Tech's DataBlaster 2, furnish customers with the ability to run high-speed data movement applications, including database extract and load, high volume backup and restore, and bulk data transfer, in minutes rather than hours. By creating a separate "data highway" for mission-critical data movement needs, DataBlaster 2 claims a throughput capacity of up to two gigabytes per minute -- without impacting the network.

"Building on our history of providing robust, reliable and fast data center connectivity solutions, we designed DataBlaster 2 to satisfy the growing need for gigabyte-level data transfers, such as those required in data warehouse and data mining applications," said Gerry Machi, vice president and general manager of DataBlaster products for Bus-Tech.

"To this end, we have enjoyed strong working partnerships for many years with the leading data movement software vendors. With DataBlaster 2, these partnerships have taken another giant step forward in meeting the connectivity and price/performance needs of our customers."

Applied Software, based in New Hope, Pennsylvania, develops and markets the data migration product, Super IND$FILE. This product allows unattended, host initiated batch file transfer between S/390 Mainframes and Windows NT Servers. Stated Ron Turner, Applied Software's director of marketing, "Our product, when bundled with Bus-Tech's DataBlaster, is called Super IND$FILE with High-Speed Transfer Option. When using this combination we realize file transfer throughput greater than 20 times faster than traditional coax devices."

The Panorama Stage3/DataBlaster 2 product leverages Panorama's expertise in the enterprise backup and recovery market while vastly improving backup and restore speed and minimizing configuration setup and overhead. According to Linda Wink, president of Panorama Software, "The Stage3/DataBlaster 2 product combination is targeted for sites with critical distributed applications or databases located in or near the glasshouse and is used in database recovery situations where the ability to instantly backup and restore corporate data is critical. Stage3, in combination with DataBlaster 2, provides our customers with gigabytes-per-minute performance and offers the fastest and most secure way to backup and restore distributed data."

Torrent Systems has developed its Orchestrate solution to simplify the process of developing, deploying, and managing applications on parallel computers. By hiding the complexities of parallel machines, Orchestrate enables organizations to apply fully parallel systems to gain the benefits of rapid parallel application development and optimum application performance. Data processing applications for Orchestrate include data warehousing, decision support (including data mining), and batch data processing systems. Commented Mike Beckerle, chief technology officer for Torrent, "Customers use DataBlaster 2 in conjunction with Orchestrate to provide the fundamental access path to original data stored on the mainframe. DataBlaster greatly simplifies the development of complete scalable data processing applications by eliminating the mainframe access bottleneck."

Bus-Tech currently licenses Parallel Data Mover (PDM) from CNT. PDM provides a unique capability to transfer high volumes of data in parallel data streams. DataBlaster1s ability to support PDM and these parallel data streams provides lightening-fast performance benefits for customers.

The Bus-Tech DataBlaster 2 is a family of high-performance control units, differentiated only by port configuration, that reaches its high throughput levels by emulating industry-standard tape drives at each side of the connection. On the mainframe side, it connects up to two ESCON (Enterprise Systems Connection) or Bus and Tag channels, providing throughput speeds of up to 32 megabytes per second (MB/s). On the server side, up to four Ultra Wide SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) connections attached to enterprise servers provide data movement at speeds up to 40 MB/s per connection. DataBlaster 2 is certified for use with popular server platforms including Windows NT, HP/UX, IBM AIX, Digital Alpha UNIX and Sun Solaris.

DataBlaster 2 products are available now from Bus-Tech resellers and OEMs and range in price from $12,000 to $35,000 depending on port configuration.

For more information, see http://www.bustech.com