SILICON VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs), Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corporation, today announced that Fujifilm Corporation and Sony Corporation have completed interchange testing for LTO Ultrium generation 7 format. The successful completion of this testing now permits these companies to use the LTO Ultrium generation 7 format trademarks on LTO technology products.
“The industry leading magnetic tape manufacturers have once again demonstrated their commitment to the LTO Program,” said Calline Sanchez, Vice President Enterprise System Storage, IBM. “The LTO-7 technology is the biggest announcement in capacity and performance that the LTO program has made in four generations. LTO technology continues to provide enterprises with a way to contain the massive growth of critical data at the lowest possible cost.”
The LTO Program requires that all licensees pass a series of verification testing involving rigorous data interchangeability requirements prior to using the LTO Ultrium trademarks. Testing of a manufacturer’s LTO products is performed annually to confirm (based on the test samples) that it is adhering to the LTO Ultrium format specifications. Buyers seeking Ultrium format products look for the LTO Ultrium format trademark logo on both tape drives and data cartridges when reviewing backup and archiving solutions. Announced earlier this year, LTO-7 specifications support tape cartridge storage compressed capacity of up to 15TB*, more than twice that compressed capacity over the previous generation, and tape drive data transfer rates of up to 750MB* per second for over 2.7 terabytes of storage performance an hour per drive. As with previous generations, LTO generation 7 drives will provide backward compatibility with the ability to read and write LTO generation 6 cartridges and read LTO generation 5 cartridges, helping to preserve media investments and ease implementation.
In addition, the LTO Ultrium generation 7 format includes partitioning functionality, introduced in LTO generation 5, providing file system access to data on tape, continued support for AES-256 bit encryption for securing critical data and Write Once Read Many (WORM) support for regulatory compliance.
Learn more about LTO technology, LTFS, exciting user stories and a variety of compelling storage white papers at www.lto.org/trustlto, and follow The LTO Program on Twitter (@TheLTOProgram), LinkedIn or the Blog.
How to License LTO Ultrium Technology
The LTO Program has historically offered several different license packages – from enhanced packages that provide the specifications and licenses to manufacture LTO Ultrium products, to basic packages providing LTO format specifications.
Buyers seeking LTO Ultrium format-compliant products should look for the LTO Ultrium format compliance verification trademarks on both tape drives and data cartridges. Storage and media manufacturers interested in licensing LTO formats may obtain information by contacting the LTO Program at www.lto.org/contact-us/.
About Linear Tape-Open (LTO)
The LTO Ultrium format is a powerful, scalable, adaptable open tape format developed and continuously enhanced by technology providers Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corporation (and their predecessors) to help address the growing demands of data protection in the midrange to enterprise-class server environments. This ultra-high capacity generation of tape storage products is designed to deliver outstanding performance, capacity and reliability combining the advantages of linear multi-channel, bi-directional formats with enhancements in servo technology, data compression, track layout, and error correction.
The LTO Ultrium format has a well-defined roadmap for growth and scalability. The roadmap represents intentions and goals only and is subject to change or withdrawal. There is no guarantee that these goals will be achieved. The roadmap is intended to outline a general direction of technology and should not be relied upon in making a purchasing decision. Format compliance verification is vital to meet the free-interchange objectives that are at the core of the LTO Program. Ultrium tape mechanism and tape cartridge interchange specifications are available on a licensed basis. For additional information on the LTO Program, visit www.lto.org/trustlto and the LTO Program web site at www.lto.org.
*Assuming a 2.5:1 compression achieved with larger compression history buffer available beginning with LTO generation 6 drives.
Note: Linear Tape-Open, LTO, the LTO logo, Ultrium, and the Ultrium logo are trademarks of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and Quantum in the US and other countries.
