Here was a speaker from General Dynamics who is installing STK silos in a few of his data centers nationwide. The Automated Cartridge Subsystem (ACS) is an automatic tape library made and marketed by Storage Tech. It consists of a cylindrical cabinet 12 feet in diameter with 7000 tape cartridges (about the size of an 8-track) stored inside. A robot roams around inside, using a camera to read tape labels. STK tape drives are hung on the outside of the ACS, and the robot automatically responds to tape mount requests. It sounds horrible and complicated, but reports are favorable to date.

General Dynamics piloted the project last year, and things went so well they are implementing the ACS in several data centers. They have also been provided "a really nice discount" from STK, so I guess that influenced their decision to install the ACS. Their primary goal is unattended operations, but a secondary goal is to reduce the amount of time it takes to satisfy a mount request.

He cautioned that you should plan on STK taking four days to install an ACS (these things are assembled in place). There were a number of problems getting it up: some microcode and installation bugs, some operating system problems and some drive anomalies. After things smoothed out though, they were quite pleased.

They have NOT appreciably reduced the number of mounts by real operators. General Dynamics has a HUGE tape library, and they have somewhere between 30 and 35 thousand tape mounts per week. They are trying to put the most frequently used tapes in the ACS; it is now up to 5,000 automated mounts per week.

Their newest plan calls for buying an ACS for online, offsite storage for disaster recovery purposes. They'll put the ACS about a kilometer away, and attach it to the mainframe via 4.5 MB/sec fiberoptic channel extenders.

Some people have all the fun.