Storage Technology Corp yesterday put a bomb under IBM Corp with the launch of its Iceberg disk-array storage subsystem with commitments from more than 140 customers for Iceberg subsystems worth over $150m. The company also has a fault-tolerant, disk-array storage subsystem for the AS/400 market and other mid-range machines. Iceberg goes into beta test next quarter with production shipments set for the third. The Iceberg 9200 Disk Array Subsystem goes from $1.3m in minimum configuration with 64Mb cache and 100Gb on Hewlett-Packard Co 5.25 disks, to $3.6m in maximum configuration with 512Mb of cache and 400Gb of disk capacity. Prices include disk-array controller, one to four disk-array units and software. Iceberg spreads data over all the disks in the subsystem and if a disk fails, data can be reconstructed from redundant data on other disks, and the subsystem automatically activates a spare disk and reconstructs the failed disk. Each potential point of hardware failure has a back-up, including the cooling systems, power supplies, emergency batteries, cables, boards, cards, data paths and the operator panel and an expert system is designed to predict and avoid potential problems before they affect operations. At the heart of the XSA Extended System Architecture is XSA/Dynamic Mapping, a mapping capability that presents an IBM 3990 interface to the host, user and systems programmer. Tables of pointers in the Iceberg controller provide dynamic mapping between the functional configuration the host sees and the physical devices that comprise the Iceberg subsystem. Functional volumes do not exist in XSA – the functional tracks associated with a functional volume are spread across the physical devices in the Iceberg subsystem in compressed format. XSA uses fixed block architecture devices, but presents the functional image of extended count-key-data devices. XSA/Dynamic Configuration enables the functional configuration of an Iceberg subsystem to be determined by user requirements rather than physical devices and as many as four functional 3990 subsystems can be defined in one Iceberg subsystem, providing 256 addressable functional volumes. Both 3380 and 3390 track geometries are supported. Later, StorageTek plans to deliver XSA/Snapshot Copy to enable the storage subsystem to make copies of data in seconds. Snapshot copies will be used to back up data while on-line processing continues without interruption. Outboard data compression and compaction techniques will typically enable up to three times more data to be stored in the same space as traditional disk architecture. XSA/NearLink is also planned, to connect Iceberg with StorageTek’s Nearline robotic tape library. The company will finance Iceberg itself, offering lease rates that reflect its confidence in the longevity of the product. During 1992, StorageTek also plans to introduce two products for the AS/400 market via its XL/Datacomp Inc acquisition, the Alpine Storage Manager fault-tolerant disk array, and the Snowmass Disk Subsystem, which uses 5.25 drives. The company also showed the PowderHorn next-generation cartridge library with new high-performance robotics; and the WolfCreek lower-capacity cartridge library both planned for next year.
