One of Storage Technology Corp’s best-kept secrets is a product called VM Storage Server, which it insists it announced during the summer, but which does not seem to have scored a mention in any major publication. VM Server is an interface processor between the company’s top-selling 4400 Automated Cartridge System tape library, and enables multiple dissimilar mainframes to share the library – as well as IBM mainframes, it supports any mix of Unisys OS1100, Bull GCOS 8, Cray Research Inc, Control Data Cyber, ICL VME, Siemens BS2000 and Unix concurrently. The server consists of software written by Storage Technology running under VM on an IBM 9370 – StorageTek is currently using either a 9373-25 or a 9375-50, coupled with a program that runs on each of the mainframes. The VM Server takes requests from the mainframe and instructs the tape library which tape to load and where, informing the server when the tape is mounted. The mainframe then has a direct path to the library to collect the data it wants from the tape. Prices range from about $125,000 for a 9373-25 which can support 10 of the tape libraries and can do 350 mounts an hour, to $350,000 for a 9375-50 which will support 30 librar ies and do 450 mounts an hour. The system has been tested with GCOS 8 on the NEC Corp and Honeywell main frames that support the Mark III time-sharing service at General Electric Information Services, and has completed beta testing with Unisys 1100 and 2200 systems at the Union Bank of Switzerland. The company is not too worried that the 9370s have been superseded – it says it will move down to the desk- top 9371s, which are still current, or one of the new System/390 9221s.
