Storage Technology Inc is backing little known storage management company for its new push into data warehousing, due to be announced today (Wednesday). Rockville, Maryland-based FileTek has agreed to jointly market and deliver its StorHouse atomic data management software, intended to enable customers to store large amounts of data on a combination of disk, optical and tape for use in large scale data warehousing applications. StorageTek says that traditional relational databases can’t cope with the huge amounts of data generated by the massive transaction rates generated by telecommunications companies, for instance. Bell South, estimates the company, generated 108 billion calls in 1997, and with each call record taking up just 4000 bytes of data, the total amount of storage required to log those calls amounts to 43Tb. Understandably, the data has to be summarized in order to store it more cheaply. Standard relational databases can’t manage that amount of data, according to StorageTek. The FileTek software accepts the raw data from MVS, Unix or Windows NT and transforms it into a relational structure, indexes it and stores it in the various hierarchies. Users can then write SQL commands to get the data back from tape or optical disk, and don’t have to upload it to the main drives. The FileTek software runs on a Sun Microsystems Inc E-Series server, with StorageTek providing the storage hardware. It intends to sell the whole package as an integrated storage appliance with FileTek installing the software. Last year AT&T Co signed up FileTek to provide the software to store the call details of its domestic and long distance wireless, local and internet traffic, in what it claimed at the time was the largest known call detail warehouse in the world. StorageTek will target telecommunications companies in the US initially, but says it will expand its operations both internationally and to other market sectors over time. In a separate deal, StorageTek said it would also offer Pine Cone Systems Inc’s Scorecard performance analysis tool for evaluating the performance and productivity of data warehouses and data marts. Storagetek says it now generates around 40% of its revenues from services and storage applications.
