Sun Microsystems Virtual Tape Library - Manual (Page 17)

Features
96267 • G Chapter 1 Introduction: VTL appliances and enterprise data-protection 3
The Shred feature insures military standard, secure data destruction by
overwriting virtual tape with random bit patterns. Data destruction jobs are
queued so that the shred process does not have an excessive impact upon
performance.
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Data compression
Sun VTL Plus 2.0 supports both software‐based and hardware‐based data
compression.
Both data‐compression technologies offer similar functionality. Both are based on
the LZO algorithm. When necessary, either can increase the amount of data that
will fit on a virtual tape of a given capacity. Compression ratios can approach 2:1
for data sets made up of highly compressible file types, such as plain text and
uncompressed bitmapped images (incompressible file types, such as ZIP archives,
GIF images, and JPG images reduce the attainable compression proportionately).
However, the optional VTL Plus 2.0 compression hardware offers significantly
higher throughput performance compared with the software‐only approach.
Specialized ASICs (application‐specific integrated circuits) on the optional
compression cards perform the calculations that software‐only solutions must
perform on the system CPU.
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Support for Sun StorageTek ACSLS and Library Station library‐management
software
ACSLS and Library Station support makes a high degree of integration possible
between VTL solutions and complex enterprise storage environments that include
large libraries with multiple partitions and mixed open systems and mainframe
systems. Sun VTL virtual libraries can cache or copy tape volumes to storage
pools on shared, ACSLS‐managed libraries. Alternatively, ACSLS can be
configured to manage virtual libraries.
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Email notifications
The VTL email alerts feature monitors an extensible set of pre‐defined critical
system functions and automatically notifies a local system administrator by email.
You can extend or modify the CallHome monitoring scripts to customize
monitoring for your needs.
■ X‐ray diagnostics
The X‐ray feature combines snapshots of the current state of the appliance, its
configuration, and its environment with system event logs and saves the result in
a standard, tape‐archive (tar) format.
Key VTL features are discussed in more detail later in this chapter.