Clareti VTL--formerly known as the Storage Consolidation Platform--is a virtual tape library offering that the vendor notes supports any back up application, any tape drive or media type. The hardware platform is deployed between the storage applications themselves and the physical tape media, enabling the backup applications to write data to disk while the VTL itself then transfers data to physical tape drives or libraries.

Configurations of the product are offered covering entry level to enterprise deployments; with the high end offering supporting up to 8,192 virtual drives, 6,000,000 cartridges, and better than a petabyte of disk storage. Management of the platform is via a single Web-based GUI console, with a configuration wizard assisting with VTL setup.

A key feature of the product is its ability to allow backups and restores to be performed even without the VTL; thus restores needn't be first transfered to disk before being restored to the host. The vendor states that the platform maintains a 1:1 native format for compatibility with backup applications.

Other features include reporting capabilities with predictive failure avoidance; and a "1 button" call home feature that allows for the bundling and E-mailing of log files and configuration files to support personnel in the event of a failure.

Features in the upcoming new release include:

- Support for 4 Gb FC interfaces on the front end

- Higher disk cache performance

- A "Scalable Node" based architecture in which the disk cache is shared across VTL nodes (in the event one VTL goes down, the virtual tape can still be mounted on a virtual drive from a different VTL)

The new release of Clareti VTL is expected to be available at the end of the 2nd quarter. Contact Gresham Enterprise Storage for further information.