Hitachi Ltd isn’t going to sit on the sidelines and let Storage Technology Corp and others vacuum up the market for high- performance, network tape storage subsystems. In the third quarter Hitachi Computer Products America Inc will introduce a range of Windows NT-based Hilander backup servers solutions using its new 3.5 Wolfhound drive pitched, it would appear, against Storage Technology’s own TimberWolf tape library. The NT devices will be used to back up Unix, NT, LAN and other client/server environments, running Legato Systems Inc’s NetWorker for NT software. Hitachi, which will sell Wolfhound in the US only to begin with, is also going to market the device for use in autoloaders, multi-drive libraries and individual drive products. It claims Wolfhound can read damaged or deteriorated tapes better than other 8mm devices. Hitachi already offers Hilander configurations for backing up NetWare networks using Hewlett- Packard Co’s 1550 DAT auto loader. Hitachi’s primary storage business is selling tape subsystems for IBM compatible mainframes. What’s with this wolf theme anyway? We’ve now got Microsoft Corp’s Wolfpack clustering, Novell Inc’s – or should that be Wolf Mountain’s – Wolf Mountain clustering, and Sun Microsystems Inc’s Full Moon.
