The launch of the VTL was coupled with an update to IBM’s SVC storage virtualization system, and updates to IBM’s server virtualization products, all under the company’s Virtualization Engine branding.

Earlier this year IBM told Computer Business Review that it would ship an Open Systems VTL this year, but would follow it up with a more sophisticated product in 2006. Despite IBM’s longstanding history in mainframe tape emulation, the company is not an early entrant to the nascent market for open systems tape emulators. The first major suppliers to ship open systems VTLs were tape library vendors. Last year EMC became the first big disk vendor to ship an open systems VTL, and HP followed suit last month.

EMC and HP have named the OEM sources of their VTL technology, as FalconStor Software and Sepaton respectively. IBM admits that its VTL, called the Virtualization Engine TS7510, is based on OEM’ed technology, but it will not say from where.

We don’t want to be compared with other vendors, said IBM storage director Charles Andrews. Neither would it talk about any specific features that might make its product more attractive than others. Instead IBM stressed its heritage in mainframe tape and what it claimed is a shortsighted approach to tape emulation by other vendors.

That suggests that IBM does not have any other points to distinguish itself from its rivals, and that the software that powers the Intel-based 7510 appliance is the same code that already drives either EMC or HP’s systems.

Mr Andrews admitted: At this level of technology in the industry, and this level of acceptance [by Open Systems] customers, there is not a lot of difference between technologies. He added: That will change as the [open systems] market matures.

Mr Andrews also said that it was highly likely that IBM’s supplier already has an OEM deal with another large supplier. Almost by definition it is somebody who is already doing virtualization, he said.

Sepaton explicitly ruled itself out as IBM’s current supplier. FalconStor refused to comment, suggesting that FalconStor is the secret supplier.However there are other possibilities, such as NearTek and Incipient, or Alacritus, which was recently bought by IBM’s close partner Network Appliance, although perhaps too recently to be ready for volume shipment.

IBM said that unlike other VTL vendors, its aim with the 7510 will be to augment rather than to replace tape. It also claimed that the device will be better integrated with back-end tape libraries than other suppliers’ products. IBM will support the 7510 when used to independently export data to tape without the involvement of existing backup or media servers. That requires the application of disciplined procedures in order to avoid the risk of existing backup management tools such as Veritas or IBM Tivoli or EMC Legato products – losing track of tapes in certain circumstances.

Most other vendors do not support this process, IBM said. Instead they instruct customers to export data to tape by issuing commands to their backup management tools to create copies of backup tapes, with the output from the media servers streamed to a real tape library. This avoids the risk of losing track of tapes, but creates extra workload for the media servers.

EMC’s Clariion DL VTL has previously been criticized for lacking integration with back-end libraries. However, EMC has said that it has always supported either the standalone or copy method of exporting data to tape, although it does advise customers to go the copy route.

The 7510 is a Linux-based Intel server that is attached to IBM’s mid-range disk arrays. It will carry a list price of $175,000 for a 5TB single processor configuration, and $695,000 for a 46TB twin-processor failover set-up.

The updates to IBM’s SVC tool introduced at version 3.1 increase the number of hosts that can be attached to the virtualization system, and extend the range of host operating systems, SAN switches and HBAs it will support. SVC 3.1 supports 1,024 hosts four times as many as the previous version of the product.

SVC 3.1 also allows customers to continue to use existing IBM or third-party array-based data replication tools, scripts and procedures even after the arrays in question have been virtualized by the SVC.