StorageTek Adds More Verticals to Warehouse Plans
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Newsbytes has reported that after entering the data warehousing market with a combined tape and disk storage product for telecom providers plus an initial data warehousing service, StorageTek plans to unveil new partnerships, and to integrate new World Wide Web-enabled information delivery and knowledge management for markets that will encompass health care, finance, retail, and government.

In a briefing for Newsbytes, Erik Pommer, program manager, Data Warehouse Solutions Group, said the forthcoming offerings will add to a line-up that now includes Atomic Storage, a data warehouse being jointly developed with FileTek, and Data Warehouse Performance ScoreCard, a performance evaluation service that uses tools from Pine Cone Systems, Inc. Pommer told Newsbytes that Atomic Data Store, a product first announced in June, is designed to allow highly granular access to large amounts of stored relational data, in a cost effective way.

"We're responding to industry demands for the ability to analyze very detailed data, without spending a lot of money," contended the StorageTek exec. Pommer pointed out that StorageTek has more than two decades experience in marketing its own tape storage products, as well as in reselling optical storage systems from IBM and other vendors. "We started out in the MVS marketplace, and then migrated into 'open systems,'" he observed. Also in the storage space, StorageTek provides systems integration services. Another group at StorageTek, the Network Systems Group, specializes in " high security" network routers and switches.

StorageTek's current storage line-up is categorized across vertical as well as horizontal lines. Vertical applications include check image archival, for financial institutions; medical imaging; scientific applications; document management; and video services. Beyond StorageTek's new data warehousing initiative, horizontal applications include data center back-up; PC back-up; and application storage management.

Pommer noted that StorageTek chose telecommunications as an entry point into the data warehousing arena due to the company's "significant industry presence" in that arena. Telecommunications is "the industry with the largest installed base of StorageTek equipment," he elaborated. StorageTek has ten major telecommunications accounts, and telecom contributes 20 percent of the company's annual sales.

StorageTek's new Atomic Data Store combines StorageTek's Nearline tape and Openstorage disk storage systems with FileTek's StorHouse atomic data management software. StorHouse is designed for rapid, fine-grained access to information stored on either tape, optical, or disk drives, as well fast SQL (structured query language) query times, Newsbytes was told.

Atomic Data Storage lets users "store relational data across multiple layers on tape; access the data through standard SQL commands; pull the data back from the tape archive; restore to disk, look at the files, and sort data." By augmenting disk technology with tape for long-term storage, organizations can reduce data warehousing costs by about 80 percent, he estimated.

Through the new Data Warehouse Performance Scorecard service, on the other hand, StorageTek is using tools from Pine Cone to gauge, analyze and report to customers on performance characteristics of existing data warehouses. "We're looking at usage, types of (query) requests, and bottleneck areas," he continued. StorageTek is also offering consulting services for fine-tuning data warehouses, where needed. In the future, he added, StorageTek expects to issue further partnership announcements in the data warehousing arena for products and services aimed at more markets.

StorageTek's products and services for data warehousing will ultimately integrate Web-enabled information delivery and knowledge management, Newsbytes was told. Future target markets will include health care, finance, retail, and government, Pommer said. StorageTek has already begun talking with potential partners for the health care and finance markets, he said.

"StorageTek's new data warehousing product is very good, especially for situations calling for storage of very quick explosions of data," remarked Dave Hill, an analyst for The Aberdeen Group. Although other vendors are using tape for storage back-up, for example, StorageTek's method of integrating disk and tape storage for data warehousing is "probably unique in the industry," the analyst told Newsbytes.

StorageTek is located at http://www.storagetek.com on the Web.