The  managed infrastructure replacement cycle provides a managed approach to investment and cost management. Sustained investment in computational and data infrastructure underpins UoE competitiveness (as outlined in the University Strategy).

Portions of the university back-up facility (at ACF, IBM 3500 system) need to have tape drives and tape media replaced to bring them up to modern requirements, including support for encryption and more recent tape versions. Manufactures support for the IBM TS3500 system will be ending in 2022. This infrastructure underpins all computational and data based research activities in UoE. The overall tape frames and tape storage can be retained and the library controller and drives can be upgraded to TS4500 (similar to that in JCMB). This will allow continued support and also the ability to increase capacity by approximately 3 – 5 fold, using newer higher density tape formats.

This project will deliver the necessary upgrades to the ACF tape library and facilitate the expansion of this service. Additional project documentation can be found in the project SharePoint area.