Tape Drives Research Articles

Pressing Rewind: New Encounters with Analog Memories in Ross Sutherland's Stand By for Tape Back-Up

Pressing Rewind: New Encounters with Analog Memories in Ross Sutherland's Stand By for Tape Back-Up

Biodiversity Data Curation: South Africa Goes Online

The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) operates several research platforms, which may be used by the broader South African research community (e.g. a marine research vessel and a remotely operated underwater vehicle). SAIAB’s Enterprise-grade data centre, along with expertise in systems administration and biodiversity information management, allow the institute to offer a Biodiversity Information Management Platform. Data hosted by SAIAB is replicated across three data centres, with each centre being at least 250m apart and operating independently. Infrastructure at two data centres replicates in real time, forming a high availability cluster. The third datacentre is dedicated to storing backups. High-capacity tape backup will be added in the near future. As an additional measure, cloud storage is used to store daily extracts of Specify databases, which are retained for one year. In the first instance, the Platform aims to provide SAIAB researchers and associates with biodiversity data curation services. This begins with support for the SAIAB Collections Division, to ensure that voucher specimens, tissue samples and associated media are accurately catalogued and can be easily retrieved. Biodiversity data curation is broader than this. It also means that any biodiversity data/metadata (records of species, events, occurrences/observations and traits) can potentially be curated using Specify Software, and standardised and published (subject to relevant policies) to the GBIF Data Portal using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit. The use of Specify Software to curate biodiveristy data that do not represent voucher specimens (e.g. underwater images and video) is a new research project within SAIAB, which has the potential to be extended beyond SAIAB. A new national initiative, the Natural Science Collections Facility (NSCF), was launched in 2017 to reinvigorate natural science museums across the country, to halt deterioration of specimens and improve capacity for specimen and data curation. In support of the NSCF, the SAIAB platform is offered to natural science museums in South Africa (excluding herbaria, which are all part of or affiliated with SANBI, and therefore accommodated by a different system). Each museum will be provided with a webserver, Specify 7 database, Specify web portal and IPT server. In offering this platform to the broader South African Biodiversity Science community, SAIAB is primarily motivated by the potential for collaborative research in capacity development for biodiversity data curation / information management, using Specify Software. The first research project will examine participating museums’ capacity to use the Specify Workbench sustainably, to import new voucher/occurrence records generated by fieldwork. The requisite training to enhance this potential will be provided. The Natural Science Collections Facility (NSCF) is an important collaborator in the context of enhancing the general state of South Africa’s specimen collections, and the Specify Collections Consortium is an important collaborator, specifically for support.

Stand By for Tape Back-Up

Poet Ross Sutherland found an old VHS tape in his attic. On it: a couple of old movies, a quiz show, half a sitcom episode. Through years of study, he slowly reorganized the footage into the story of his life.

Digital Cinematography: Evolution of Craft or Revolution in Production?

The debate concerning the impact of the introduction of digital technologies into the filmmaking process and the emergence of digital cinema has been raging for well over a decade. "Evolutionists," as exemplified by John Belton's 2002 article "Digital Cinema: A False Revolution," view new technology and associated methodologies as a natural progression consistent with other technical advancements in cinema (100). "Revolution- ists," including Ganz and Khatib, argue that these technologies have not only irrevocably altered filmmaking practice but have funda- mentally changed the nature of cinematic sto- rytelling (and thus the viewer experience) as well (Ganz and Khatib 21). What is interesting to note in both Belton's article and Ganz and Khatib's article is that there is a presupposi- tion that the relevant technological evolution had plateaued at the time of writing such that the question of the impact of digital technolo- gies on cinema could effectively be answered. Yet it can be argued that the most significant advancements in filmmaking technology have occurred since these articles were written. Recently released camera systems such as the Red One and Arri Alexa are claimed to have created a brave new world of data-centric production. A recent interview in Variety with Michael Cioni, owner of Light Iron Digital, a postproduction facility catering specifically to data-centric production, sums this up: "You can't make film smaller. You can't make 35mm be 8K resolution no matter what you do. You can't have a [film] camera be four pounds. You can't fit a 400-foot magazine in a smaller space. It can't improve at the rate Moore's Law says we can predict technical improvements [in digital systems]" (qtd. in Cohen).No longer does a camera department re- quire light-tight temperature-controlled spaces to load camera magazines or store reels of film. Workstations with multiple RAID arrays and linear tape backup systems have taken their place. Dailies, so called because of the time it took to develop the film and cre- ate one-light prints to check the quality and aesthetics of a day's shoot, now take mere minutes to create, no longer requiring the spe- cialist skills of a photochemical lab. But for all of this change, has the process of filmmaking been fundamentally altered? Is this truly a new era in which the cinematographer has become more of a data-capture specialist than a visual artist? Or do these advances in camera sys- tems simply represent the latest chapter in the evolution of filmmaking as Belton originally argued? This article sets out to explore these questions by looking at the craft of cinema- tography for current mainstream production and how it has been affected by technological innovation.1What Is a Cinematographer?Cinematography is an art-form but at the same time it's a craft, and it is definitely a combination of the two . . . You have to light, you have to compose and you have to create movement. Those are the three ele- ments of cinematography.-Owen Roizman (qtd. in Fauer 1: 234)Roizman's definition arguably represents the most common view of cinematography. Cin- ematographers work with a director to develop a visual means of interpreting the story. In narrative film, this process typically includes the breaking down of scripts first by acts, then by scenes, and finally by dramatic beats. At each stage, primary and secondary themes are interpreted in terms of tone and desired audi- ence response. From this, details of setting and basic production design begin to emerge, leading to a definition of a visual style. For the director, this serves as the backbone of the pro- duction bible, providing a framework for more detailed dramatic analysis. For the cinematog- rapher, it represents the beginning of a blue- print to enable physical production to realize the look of the piece. As the process continues, some form of visualization usually takes place. Working methodologies can differ significantly from project to project and director to direc- tor, with the cinematographer's control over visuals ranging anywhere from being a slave to dictated camera positions (such as Hitchcock's reputedly definitive storyboarding or the tight requirements of visual effects-based work) to holding nearly free reign over position, compo- sition, and even blocking (as in Woody Allen projects). …

Viewpoint

'TAPE SUCKS,' declared Dave Lipsey, writing in E&T back in March about his bad experiences with tapebased storage systems - in particular, tape systems based on the linear open-tape (LTO) standard. Lipsey, IS services and infrastructure manager at Ordnance Survey, told of how when backing up to tape, he was averaging 70 per cent backup success rate, which may mean a 60 per cent restore success rate. By moving to disk-based storage, Lipsey claimed to have archived 99 per cent backup success. Abandoning the unreliable and unpredictable tape backup for disk was a no-brainer.

A Project Methodology for Disaster Recovery Testing in a Server Based Environment

Project execution methodologies for conducting disaster recovery testing for a server-based environment at a hotsite are not readily available. If it is the first time an organization is testing the recovery of several applications and a network cutover, devising or locating a methodology for recovery testing at a hotsite can seem overwhelming. The majority of methodologies range from on-site failure and recovery, through mirroring or clustering techniques, to remote recovery through mirroring and or replication, rather than the more predominant tape backup and restoration at the hotsite. Frequently, the methodologies do not detail what steps to take to prepare for, and to execute, applications and network recovery at a hotsite, or how to conduct debriefing of the test results back to the testing team and senior management. This is not to say there are not good methodologies — they are just difficult to find.

Use versus manufacture life cycle electricity and environmental impacts for computer tape drives

Many companies have focused on pollution prevention initiatives including reducing the amount of energy required for production. However, many products consume orders of magnitude more energy and cause greater environmental emissions over the entire life cycle. With this in mind, a life cycle assessment of manufacturing and use-phase effects was done for a computer tape drive (TD) product. Quantum Corporation's Environmental Stewardship Group initiated an evaluation of the differential electricity and environmental impacts of its TD products that are shipped worldwide. This research showed that when internal corporate service functions were included in the evaluation, 60% more electricity was used than when only final assembly was considered. In addition, the consumption of electricity from external suppliers was nearly three times higher than internal use sources. Finally, use-phase electricity consumption was a factor of four higher than total manufacturing consumption. Better management of TD life cycle electricity use would serve to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers, while at the same time, reducing the global environmental impact of the product.

A hierarchical storage management (HSM) scheme for cost-effective on-line archival using lossy compression.

A hierarchical storage management (HSM) scheme for cost-effective on-line archival of image data using lossy compression is described. This HSM scheme also provides an off-site tape backup mechanism and disaster recovery. The full-resolution image data are viewed originally for primary diagnosis, then losslessly compressed and sent off site to a tape backup archive. In addition, the original data are wavelet lossy compressed (at approximately 25:1 for computed radiography, 10:1 for computed tomography, and 5:1 for magnetic resonance) and stored on a large RAID device for maximum cost-effective, on-line storage and immediate retrieval of images for review and comparison. This HSM scheme provides a solution to 4 problems in image archiving, namely cost-effective on-line storage, disaster recovery of data, off-site tape backup for the legal record, and maximum intermediate storage and retrieval through the use of on-site lossy compression.

New tape drive from Singapore

New tape drive from Singapore

A four-dimensional digital image archiving system for cell lineage tracing and retrospective embryology.

The paper describes a digital image archiving system for time-lapse microscopy. The system uses an MS-DOS compatible computer to store video images while simultaneously controlling a stepping motor. In a typical experiment, images might be taken at 30 s intervals in each of 25 consecutive focal planes. A system with 2.5 Gbyte disk capacity can store approximately 18,000 full frame images: 6 h recording at maximum resolution. Once recorded, images series stored on disk can be 'played back' in any order. Generally, images from a single focal plane are displayed consecutively in either forward or reverse time. The focal plane can be shifted during playback, allowing individual cells to be followed as they move between focal planes. To facilitate the annotation and interpretation of the real-time images, a mouse-driven interface allows users to define and follow individual objects (e.g. cells). The recorded image series can be achieved inexpensively using standard digital tape backup hardware. In this laboratory, the system has been particularly useful for tracing embryonic cell lineages and cell migrations. Detailed system specifications, including source code, compiled programs, hardware requirements and users manual are available directly from the author or by anonymous FTP (ciw1.ciwemb.edu).

A telemetric system for measuring electrotelluric variations in Greece and its application to earthquake prediction

A detailed description of the telemetric system that records variations in the Earth's electrical field from sixteen field stations in Greece is presented. Each field station measures potential differences between eight pairs of electrodes inserted into the ground in two orthogonal directions: N-S and E-W. Two techniques have been applied. The first one is “real time” where the field station takes the information, digitizes it and transmitts it via telephone line to a central station in Athens, which decodes the information, offsets it automatically and displays on chart recorders the small variations in the telluric current. The resolution of the system is 0.1 mV for a total gain of 200. The second technique uses dataloggers, where the information is digitized and stored in the datalogger memory. The central station has a commercial personal computer, which communicates with the datalogger, takes the information via a standard telephone line and plots the recordings every 4 h. The data are stored in compressed mode on a tape back-up streamer for future reference. The system works unattended.

Tape backup for file preservation

New developments in tape backup include the use of Digital Audio Tape (DAT) and data compression techniques but, before we take a look at these new features — and some of the available tape units that make use of them — a discussion of tape backup itself seems appropriate. Readers who are thoroughly familiar with tape backup can skip directly to the paragraph headed ‘Data compression for low cost units’.

A relational approach to querying data streams

Data streams are long, relatively unstructured sequences of characters that contain information such as electronic mail or a tape backup of various documents and reports created in an office. A conceptual framework is presented, using relational algebra and relational databases, within which data streams may be queried. As information is extracted from the data streams, it is put into a relational database that may be queried in the usual manner. The database schema evolves as the user's knowledge of the content of the data stream changes. Operators are defined in terms of relational algebra that can be used to extract data from a specially defined relation that contains all or part of the data stream. This approach to querying data streams permits the integration of unstructured data with structured data. The operators defined extend the functionality of relational algebra in much the same way that the join does relative to the basic operators select, project, union, difference, and Cartesian product. >

Streaming tape backup

As Winchester-based micros replace minicomputers in small and medium-sized businesses, the need for efficient data backup becomes crucial. Both floppy discs and removable Winchesters have drawbacks as backup media. Instead, as the article describes, streaming tape is a cost-effective and fast option. The characteristics of streaming tape systems and progress on standardizing protocols are discussed.

A data retrieval system for the eye clinic. II. The programmed system.

The programmed system of a data retrieval system for the eye clinic is described. The system uses an IBM 370/168 computer, involves programmes to minimize the possibility of entering errors and a magnetic tape back-up system to reduce the cost of storing rarely required material and as a safeguard against the accidental erasion of material on disc.

A Paper Tape Controlled X-Ray Diffractometer for the Measurement of Retained Austenite

The instrumentation and software for performing X-ray intensity measurements with a paper tape controlled diffractometer are described. The hardware includes two addressable axis positioners which control Slo-Syn stepping motors on the 2θ and ω) axes of the diffractometer, an addressable scaler-timer, a multiaxis programmer and a Teletype, in addition to the normal counting electronics. This system may be manually controlled with front panel switches or with instructions entered on the Teletype. In the automatic off-line mode instructions for motor speed, motor direction, starting angle, final angle, angular increment and scaler preset (time or counts) punched on paper tape are read and executed in sequence. A Teletype output of 2θ and ω angles, time and counts is obtained at each step. This off-line system was used for the measurement of austenite in H12 hot work die steel austenitized at various conditions and which contained a maximum of 13% austenite. A helium chamber was used to extend the limit of detection to 0.4% austenite. The X-ray analysis involved measuring the areas of the (200) austenite diffraction line and the (200) martensite line. For each of these lines, the system was programmed to integrate the counts over angular intervals corresponding to a low-angle background, the peak and a high-angle background using the ability of the axis positioner to stop the scaler-timer at the end of each angular interval. The additional capability of slewing rapidly between the various diffraction lines reduced the time required for automatic data collection. The present off-line system can be used to simplify other types of X-ray diffraction analysis such as residual stress and microstrain/particle size determinations, since the manual data handling can be eliminated with the computer compatible punched paper tape output. Future development of this instrumentation includes direct computer control of the diffractometer and computerized data reduction, with the advantage of a paper tape back-up system.