4211 Lexington Avenue North
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55126-6164
LSC is a provider of integrated storage management software products and services. We address enterprise-wide requirements for managing and safeguarding data, with a philosophy that our customers never lose data and that their data is always available.
By providing integrated storage management solutions, LSC enables users to spend less time managing their data and more time doing the work for which they were hired.
From a customer's perspective there is an increasing amount of data critical to running the business, under the control of the users. The data for these mission-critical applications will be stored on devices that are physically smaller, yet higher capacity. These devices will be distributed on workstations across the enterprise. By 1999, two-thirds of that data will be inactive, but may still be required to support business needs.
Enterprise-wide storage management is replacing network storage management. Enterprise solutions operate across multiple computing architectures (mainframe, midrange, UNIX, PC LAN), while network data management products operate on multiple hardware platforms within a single operating environment.
Many mission-critical applications are moving from legacy (mainframe) systems to open systems. Mission-critical applications, such as customer service, point-of-sale, order entry/inquiry, financial transactions, manufacturing, telemarketing and hospital/health care, require a high level of data availability and accessibility within the enterprise. The risk of down time and data inaccessibility is much higher than the cost to provide high availability and data accessibility.
Strategic Research, an independent research firm, projects the market for data and storage management software to rise from $900 million in 1996 to $2.1 billion by 1999. LSC develops and markets solutions that address this market.
About 75% of the data in a typical enterprise is rarely accessed or modified. Removing that data from on-line storage reduces expenditures for additional hard disks; freeing it from daily backups increases user and administrative productivity.
LSC believes that in order to achieve wide commercial acceptance, data storage solutions must be compatible with open system industry standards, must automate the storage and retrieval of information, must be scaleable to address the capacity and performance needs of large corporations into the twenty-first century and must protect information against natural disasters and human error.
LSC's Storage and Archive Manager File System (SAM-FS) is Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) software which cost-effectively manages the storage of up to hundreds of terabytes of near-line data, and protects it against accidental loss. Although SAM-FS operates within the Solaris 2.X operating system, it is capable of managing and safeguarding the storage of data in other architectures that support the industry standard Network File System application (NFS). LSC offers customer support, system integration, and data storage consulting services.
North America
SAM-FS provides cost-effective storage management, archival and retrieval services. SAM-FS automatically and transparently copies files from expensive on-line disk to less expensive automated storage media, and restores the files back on-line as needed. SAM-FS automatically manages available disk capacities at specified thresholds by clearing disk space of copied data.
SAM-FS runs on a Solaris 2.4 or later platform. It presents a transparent interface for the users and provides the following capabilities:
SAM-FS software contains a file system module, system processes, window-based administrative tools, system administrator commands and user commands. Within the Solaris operating system, SAM-FS uses a portion of shared memory to manage the SAM-FS file systems. Commands and processes reference the shared memory segment to manage the data.
SAM-FS allows for virtually unlimited file system sizes and number of files in each file system. In practice it is limited only by the number of disk partitions that are configured. A SAM-FS file system can expand beyond the traditional limits by allowing a file system to span multiple partitions/disks, and by allowing the file inode information to dynamically grow.
SAM-FS supports optical robots, tape robots, optical drives, tape drives, magnetic disks and disk arrays. A Master Configuration File specifies the hardware devices to use as disk cache and archive storage devices, and associates robot devices, their robot and disk partitions with their file system.
SAM-FS provides a framework to help protect data against accidental loss:
When a disk fails, SAM-FS is capable of recovering all archived data. The recovery from a disk failure is very quick, usually a matter of minutes.
LSC was organized in 1985 to provide data storage consulting services and to develop completed software for specialized applications. With the advent of UNIX networks of computer systems and workstations, LSC recognized the increasing market need for hierarchical data storage management systems. In 1990, LSC made a strategic decision to redirect its effort to address this emerging market need.
From 1990 through the first half of 1992, LSC developed proprietary software and hardware products for a UNIX network storage server (IDS-1000). In 1994, development efforts were refocused on providing storage management software running under Sun's Solaris 2 operating system. Delivery of the Sun-based software began in October 1995.
LSC is an enterprise-wide storage management software developer and solution provider, forming strategic alliances and developing distribution channels to maximize our expertise and market position. LSC will strive to be recognized as a dominant force and an expert in storage management within our target markets.
Product strategy for 1997 will enhance the robustness and performance of SAM-FS software, add support for new tape and optical storage peripherals, and expand the SAM product line to provide additional storage management capabilities needed by our markets. Future developments will include versions for other major platforms.
LSC is developing partnerships with OEMs and VARs that embed our products as part of a complete solution. In addition, LSC markets through high-end system integrators and distributors that focus on storage management and have technical resources to provide first-level customer support.
In the US, LSC operates from three locations -- Boston, Salt Lake City and Saint Paul. The Company's sales teams will sell direct to a selected base of customers and through a combination of value added resellers, manufacturer's representatives and systems integrators. Internationally, the Company distributes its products through independent, full-service master resellers: HMK Computer Technologies GmbH (Europe), NK-EXA (Japan), Data Gate (Korea), and Compu-Data Computer Services, Inc. (Central and South America).
LSC supplements its established channels through the Internet. Product information, SAM-FS software and documentation can be downloaded via the Internet. LSC's World Wide Web Home Page: /
Paul G. Miller is Chairman of the Board, Secretary and a Director of the Company since 1986 and was also Chief Executive Officer from 1986 through December 1992. From 1987 to 1995, he was Chairman of the Board of Supercomputer Systems, Inc. From 1975 to 1983, Mr. Miller served as Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Credit Company. Mr. Miller is a past director of Control Data Corporation, Commercial Credit Company, Baltimore Gas and Electric Company and Constellation Holdings, Inc. Mr. Miller is the Chairman of the Board of Merrill Corporation and an active director of Bon Secours Health System, Inc.
James Murdakes is President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of the Company since January 1993. He previously served as President of Clyde Digital, a software company which was merged with Raxco in March 1991, at which time he became Senior Vice President of Raxco, Inc. Mr. Murdakes was employed by Control Data Corporation from 1962 to 1987, most recently as Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Computer Systems and Services. Mr. Murdakes is also a director of Image Sensing Systems, Inc.
Donald D. Crouse is a founder of the Company and Senior Vice President and a Director of the Company since 1986. From 1986 through December 1992, Mr. Crouse served as President of the Company. Mr. Crouse is a member of the ANSI X3B11 Subcommittee on File Labels and Data Format Standards for Optical Recording. Mr. Crouse has an extensive technical background and participated as a consultant at Cray Research in the development of a supercomputer I/O system.
Harriet G. Coverston is a founder of the Company and the principal software architect. She is currently Vice President of reSearch. From 1974 to 1976 Ms. Coverston was employed by Control Data. From 1967 to 1974, Ms. Coverston was employed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Gregg Juettner has been Vice President of Marketing since April of 1995. Mr. Juettner has extensive experience in computer networking and data storage, in Marketing, Planning and Product Management capacities. Mr. Juettner was most recently Director of Marketing with NETstor, Inc., a developer of UNIX-based HSM software.
S. Kent Angell has been Vice President of Sales since July of 1995. Mr. Angell was President and founder of T-mass, Inc., until its acquisition by LSC in June, 1995. Mr. Angell has held a number of senior sales and management positions prior to forming T-mass. From September 1991 to September 1993, he was employed by Convex, a supercomputer manufacturer, most recently as marketing manager of Convex Europe.
Brad Balogh, Vice President / Chief Financial Officer, joined the Company July 1996. Formerly with Cray Research where his most recent assignment was Senior Director, Product Financing and Corporate Contracts. Prior to this assignement he was Finance Director / Division Controller of Cray's Business System Division.
Patrick Donlin, Vice President, Software Development, formerly with Cray Research where his most recent assignment was the development of system software for the highly successful EL and J90 series of mid range supercomputers. He also managed the development of mass storage subsystems for the EL file server including robotic tape systems and RAID disks. Mr. Donlin joined LSC in August, 1996.
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Integrated Data Server (IDS), Storage and Archiving Manager (SAM-FS) and
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