FUJIFILM INSIGHTS BLOG

Storage industry analysts are saying that 2023 will be remembered for its historic downturn in demand. This may be so, due to hyperscaler digestion of previous year’s capacity shipments. But a few things remain constant, such as the growth of data driven by the proliferation of new applications in the digital data sphere and things like data intensive AI/ML. You can also add in the steady expansion of IoT including video surveillance applications. Another constant is the increasing value of data that users want to keep more of and for longer periods of time. Users also want ready online access to that data giving rise to the popularity of cost-effective and energy-efficient active archive solutions. So here are my highlights for 2023 and really bold predictions for 2024!

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I recently had the opportunity to visit a very unique data tape vault run by Vital Records, Inc. The location I visited is in Roxbury New Jersey, about an hour drive from New York City. What makes this tape vault known as VRI Roxbury, so unique is that it is 125,000 square feet of vault space situated between 30 and 50 feet underground. It was originally built by AT&T as a hardened command center bunker in the 1960’s. The facility is an intriguing blast from the past with relics of AT&T’s occupancy tastefully preserved. It was built to withstand natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires or dare I say, a nearby nuclear blast. In such an event, AT&T could continue to support the telecommunications needs of its clients, including the U.S. Military. So no expense was spared in building what is truly an engineering marvel below ground.

Vital Records purchased the facility in 1995 upon its decommissioning by AT&T and repurposed the space for protection and preservation of valuable enterprise data, most often in the form of millions of removable/portable data and video tapes. To say that the facility is fascinating would be an understatement. It is however, non-descript, at least upon arrival. VRI Roxbury is discreetly perched in the middle of desolate woods, atop a slight rise in the landscape, some 1,100+ feet above sea level, with nothing but a nameless security gate, a freshly painted parking lot, and a small anonymous structure housing an elevator entrance to accommodate pre-screened visitors and authorized employees at any time of day, 24/7.

Truth be told, this was not my first visit to VRI Roxbury. I had toured the facility some 20 years earlier while working for another data tape manufacturer. And while the facility has kept up with modern innovations such as security protocols including iris scans, temperature and humidity monitoring, hi-def video surveillance, new and improved inventory management techniques, it still essentially provides the same services today that it did 20 years ago. However, given several critical market dynamics, these services are more relevant today than ever before.

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As both an active archive and tape evangelist, I’m excited to share how LTO (Linear Tape-Open) tape technology can transform video surveillance storage into a powerful, affordable, and long-term active archive solution. While there is a desperate need for more storage to support the proliferation of video surveillance applications, many in the video surveillance industry view the concept of “archive” as a burdensome process. But when done right with easy-to-use LTO tape systems, it becomes a strategic advantage in the form of an active archive.

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How long have you been working at Fujifilm and what is your role in the company?

I have been with FUJIFILM Data Storage division for 3.5 years now as Director of Marketing for the FUJIFILM branded Linear Tape Open (LTO) product line, and I’m located at the FUJIFILM North America headquarters in Valhalla, NY. Prior to being with Fujifilm, I spent 13 years in business aviation marketing making sure that sales take off!

What’s do you like most about your job?

I have really enjoyed installing a digital marketing infrastructure from the ground up. This is what we call the “DX project” and it involves a lot of new technology, processes and organizational improvements. This allows our sales & marketing teams to be more efficient and results in a better customer experience when seeking information about our products, services and value proposition. But I also like the creative side and the development of content that we use in the DX project.

Can you talk about some of your recent marketing campaigns?

Our current campaign is called “Built on Tape” and started in early 2023. This ANA Award-winning campaign features eye-catching creative and is designed to build awareness for the fundamental advantages of modern data tape. We believe organizations can build solid storage strategies with tape as a building block especially when it comes to cool or cold data. Hopefully readers of this blog page will have seen our banner ads throughout the IT world. 

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The IT industry is often described as “dynamic”. That is to say, constantly changing, and evolving. There is always a “flashy new thing” to grab our attention and distract us. That may be the case when it comes to data storage. With relatively new and flashy things like SSDs, who’s had the time to pay attention to good old tape technology and the its role in ransomware protection?

Actually, lots of big data managers have been paying very close attention to tape technology these days. The largest active archives and archival cloud services on the planet are based on modern generations of tape storage. For everyone else, there is a killer app that is rapidly raising awareness for good old tape and that is ransomware protection.

Leveraging the low data storage cost, removability and portability of today’s highly advanced tape technology turns out to be a great way to get copies of mission-critical data offline and offsite for the inevitable day when cyber criminals take control of an organization’s network and demand a hefty ransom payment.

As National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is upon us, it is worth reviewing the cybersecurity advice and best practices recommended by the government, regulatory agencies and insurance companies. So here are five reasons why data tape backups should be part of every organization’s cyber security and ransomware protection plans:

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Big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, video surveillance, and social media are among some of the biggest trends in the technology industry driving the creation of massive data sets that need to be managed and retained.

A new report from the Tape Storage Council: Tape Is Primed for The Rise in Secondary Storage, looks at the current data growth and economic factors driving the demand for advanced solutions to effectively contain Petascale and Exascale requirements. Many organizations continue to store this data on more costly to operate HDDs (hard disk drives) which require constant power and cooling to maintain reliable operations.

However, as digital data creation continues to grow at 25% or more per year, at least 80% of the world’s digital data is lower activity data optimally suited for secondary storage. Secondary storage is persistent storage designed to keep less critical and less active data on more economical, secure storage mediums that don’t need to be accessed as frequently as data on primary storage.

In response to this challenge, the tape ecosystem has significantly expanded its capabilities in recent years. LTO tape capacity continues to increase as new magnetic particles like Barium Ferrite and Strontium Ferrite will help to scale tape areal density for decades to come and current roadmaps signal that the trend of steady tape innovation will continue well into the future. It’s time to rethink existing data storage practices and take advantage of advanced magnetic tape for delivering the most sustainable, cost effective, highly scalable, and reliable mass storage systems.

For more information the ransomware-resilient, long-term data archiving benefits of tape storage and to download the full report, visit https://tapestorage.org.

Having lived most of my life in the Northeast, and having endured many cold and snowy winters, I was always jealous of the nice weather in California. Then to add to my jealousy, California was frequently referred to in the press as a “bellwether” state, particularly in politics. The term often applies to a geographic region where political tendencies might predict the eventual results for the entire country. In economics, a bellwether is a leading indicator of an economic trend.  When it comes to the data tape industry, I think it’s safe to say that the 50 TB tape system recently announced by Fujifilm and IBM is a bellwether for tape technology.  

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The 17^th annual edition of the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center earlier this month with some 100 exhibitors and more than 3,000 registered attendees. FMS showcases the industry’s key applications, technologies, vendors, and innovative startups that are driving the multi-billion dollar high-speed memory and SSD markets. Started in 2006, FMS features the trends, innovations, and influencers driving the adoption of flash memory and other high-speed memory technologies that support demanding enterprise storage applications, high-performance computing, AI/ML, mobile and embedded systems from the edge to the core data center and the cloud.

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In this executive Q&A, Shota Kamimura discusses his role at Fujifilm as a media reliability engineer, solutions to data storage problems, and the future of magnetic data tape.

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At least for now, climate change is getting worse. We actually had the hottest days on Earth this July with a record global average of 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit. That does not sound that hot but it’s an average including summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere. These were the hottest days since 1979 at least, and broke records previously set in 2016 of 62.46 degrees F.

Severe weather could be seen across the U.S. from record-setting triple-digit heat waves out West and down South plus record rainfall and flooding in the Northeast with some locations getting 10 to 12 inches of rain in a single day. Extreme weather can be found in Asia, Europe, really all over the world. Global warming plus an El Nino event where the Pacific Ocean is releasing excessive heat are to be blamed. Scientists are sounding the alarm again that we must curb carbon emissions or we can expect more of the same, only worse, in the years and decades ahead.

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