Paper Title: The New Tape Technology in Cold Data Storage

Paper Abstract: Tape as a cold archive has seen a strong resurgence. There are many reasons including having the best total cost of ownership. With the growing amount of data to be stored, Tape is the best technology to store cold data. This presentation explores different aspects of tape storage: the technology, environmental sustainability and new use cases, including when tape is paired with flash. The presentation will show that Tape has made tremendous strides in technology while still having a lot of capability before hitting fundamental physics limits. A discussion on energy sustainability & carbon footprint will be explored, and some optimal applications will be introduced.

Paper Author: Alistair Symon, Vice President, Head of Development, IBM

Author Bio: Alistair is the head of development for storage systems in IBM where he leads the development of IBM storage products including All Flash Arrays, Hybrid Disk Systems and Tape. Prior to this Alistair was Vice President of Distributed Storage Development leading worldwide development of the XIV, All Flash Arrays and SVC/Storwize products. Earlier in his career, Alistair was responsible for IBM's Enterprise Storage Systems including DS8000 and Tape Systems. He has also led the development of IBM’s Storage Software products including the Spectrum Control and Spectrum Protect products that enable customers to manage and backup their data centers. He was the manager of storage development in the UK. In this role he was responsible for the development of the SAN Volume Controller, IBM’s software for virtualizing storage area networks, and the RAID engine for ESS 800 and DS8000. Alistair began his career as a software engineer at the Hursley Laboratory in the UK working on software infrastructure for the retail industry. He then moved to storage development where he has held various management positions over the last 25 years. Alistair received his BSc in Computer Science from the University of Warwick in the UK.