Digital Archive Systems - Hitachi

1 Digital Archive Systems 16 Digital Archive SystemsOVERVIEW: With the spread of Digital satellite broadcasting and Internet-based electronic-information services, Digital content (information in digitalform) is expanding rapidly in society and individual households in the formof text, still pictures, motion pictures, sound, etc. In such a Digital -multimediaera, the archiving of this huge volume of data has become a major this background, Hitachi , Ltd. has developed a Digital Archive systemequipped with Digital versatile disc random access memory (DVD-RAM),which is now receiving attention as next-generation large-capacity universalmedia. The objective of this DVD library system is to enable long-termstorage of continuously increasing Digital data in all sorts of fields in asecure and easy-to-use NakamuraSeiji FujiokaToru IshikawaINTRODUCTIONOUR society in recent years has become immersed incomputers and networks, and Digital multimediainformation has begun to permeate all facets or ourlife, from daily living to a social level, there has been a dramatic increasein government and community-related corporate world, on the other hand, has seen arapid increase in company-related information,transaction information.

2 And customer information,while the common household has experienced a sharpjump in various types of content due to the spread ofdigital satellite broadcasting, the Internet, and 1 DigitalContents and is growingfor Archive systemsthat can store therapidly increasingamount of digitalcontents (informationin Digital form) inbusiness, society, andthe (tower type) Digital archiveCorporationSocietyHomeInternet, Intranets, Extranets, CATV, Digital broadcasting, Satellite broadcasting, Optical communicationsMini-changer (single type)LANB usiness management informationCompany management informationTransaction historyBusiness informationIntranet informationDigital libraries, museums, and art galleriesMobile-based information Broadcast videoElectronic publishingHealth-care, education, and government informationMail orderingElectronic publishingMovies, music, gamesDigital-broadcast storageHome-page storageTelecommuting, home education, remote medical examinationsInternet shoppingLAN, MobileHome serverHitachi Review Vol.

3 49 (2000), No. 1 17To meet the demands of this Digital multimedia era, Hitachi , Ltd. has been promoting the development ofdigital Archive Systems for long-term storage of variouskinds of data in a secure and user-friendly this paper, we report on changes occurring inthe social environment amidst the rapid increase ofdigital multimedia information and the need to processit, overview the DVD Library system developed byHitachi, and point out future directions in digitalarchive Systems (Fig. 1). Digital ARCHIVES AND THE SOCIALENVIRONMENTC hanges in the social environment and in socialsystems are coming to have a significant impact onthe storage and provision (release) of information.

4 Thefollowing discusses several important changes thataffect Digital StandardsWithin the international community, muchimportance has come to be attached to qualityassurance and environmental protection on a corporatelevel, and the number of companies that have gainedcertification from the International Organization forStandardization (ISO) has increased dramatically. TheISO9000 standard, for example, requires the storageand management of records and documents associatedwith product development, and ISO14000 stresses theneed for reducing paper usage from the viewpoints ofprotecting the environment and saving LegislationRecognizing the trend in information storage byelectronic media, the following legislation has beenrecently enacted in Japan.

5 (1) Electronic Record Keeping LawRecords related to national taxes that companies havebeen obligated to store on paper can now be stored onelectronic media (July 1998).(2) Medical Practitioners LawPatient records that medical clinics and hospitals havebeen obligated to store on paper can now be stored onelectronic media (April 1999).In the above manner, the need for Digital archivesis growing on a social level as MEDIA AND STORAGEHIERARCHYA dvances in Optical DiscsThe general consensus is that optical discs willcontinue to progress and become widely used as large-capacity Digital the appearance of compact discs (CD) formusic playback and laser discs (LD) for movieplayback in the early 1980 s, optical discs have takenon write-once and rewritable formats, and in additionto increased capacity, they have spread as a storagemedium in audiovisual (AV) and computer present, this large capacity (write-once Gbyte per side.)

6 Rewritable format: Gbyte perside) and a common universal disc format (UDF) areexpected to make Digital versatile discs (DVD) widelyused as interchangeable recording media (universalmedia), from AV to computer equipment and fromhousehold to corporate HierarchyComputer-based information storage can beclassified by access performance, storage capacity, andfrom a cost viewpoint, layered configuration or storage hierarchy. The first hierarchical layer is mainmemory, the second is hard disk, and the third is opticaldisc or magnetic a Digital Archive system , the goal is to achievehigh-speed access and large capacity simultaneouslywith low bit cost by combining such LIBRARY SYSTEMU sing rewritable DVD-RAM, Hitachi , Ltd.

7 Hasconstructed a DVD Library system having largecapacity and low bit cost and featuring random-accessand long-term storage OverviewBy incorporating a DVD-RAM drive and media inchanger equipment, three types of library Systems havebeen developed ranging from small capacity (13 TABLE 1. Overview of DVD Library SystemComes in three types: jukebox, single mini-changer, tower mini-changerTower mini-changerDrives: 2/4; media storage: 100/150 discs; capacity: 260/390 GbyteDrives: 1 5-disc mini-changer drive; media storage: 1 5-disc cartridge; capacity: 13 GbyteDrives: 1-to-5 5-disc mini-changer drives; media storage: 1-to-5 5-disc cartridges.)

8 Capacity: 13-to-65 GbyteOverviewDigital Archive Systems 18 Gbyte) to large capacity (390 Gbyte), as summarizedin Table mini-changer was developed as a compactDVD Library system , and it comes in two forms: asingle type and a tower type that combines five of thesingle types (Fig. 2).Filing SystemUp to now, magnetic tape (MT) library equipmentand magneto-optical (MO) disc-library equipmenthave been used as storage equipment for computersystems. For the future, Hitachi proposes DVDlibraries as low cost and highly accessible large-capacity storage Systems .(1) User interfaceThis system supports UDF, DVD-RAM s basic format,as a filing system .

9 The user interface for this filingsystem when using the mini-changer is shown in Here, each disc of media is represented as a virtualfolder. The user need only click on a desired folder toinitiate automatic mounting of the disc needed.(2) Cache supportThe effective use of hard disks raises the processingperformance of this library system . For example, toachieve high-speed access of virtual folders, file-directory information is stored on a hard disk. Inaddition, by first saving write data on hard disks andwriting it at a later time to disc media, write speed canbe improved SystemRecent computer Systems have come to incorporateDigital Audio Tape (DAT) as standard for backing upserver DVD Library system includes a DVD-RAMtape-emulator driver so that data backup can beachieved in the form of a tape image when using thebackup utility provided as standard with Windows *.

10 The user can then restore backed up data usingthe DVD library in the same manner as restoring , Ltd. employs a DVD library as backupequipment for personal-computer APPLICATION EXAMPLESA wide variety of applications can be consideredfor an Archive system that stores Digital data, includingthe storage of multimedia contents and broadcastvideo, medical and health care information, andcorporate and business data. Among these, we outlinea Document Management system and a Telephone-Fig. 2 Perspective View of the Single-type 5-disc special cartridge enables 5 DVD-RAM discs to be inserted orremoved at once.*Windows NT is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.