SpectrumData Opening Hours Over Christmas & New Year
It will be business as usual over the festive period, with our doors remaining open for all normal business days over the Christmas and New Year period. Our offices will be closed only for the scheduled Western Australian Public holidays of Monday 26^th, Tuesday 27^th December, and Monday 2^nd January.

On December 1^st, SpectrumData announced the appointment of Chris Lashley, as its representative in the United States and Canada. Chris, who will initially be based in Florida, has over fifteen years of business development and operational management experience and will take up this role immediately.

This announcement comes just days after the appointment of Indian company Reservoil, who will be acting as SpectrumData’s representative in India and across the Central Asian region.

Reservoil is a leading company in India specialising in the exploration and production industry. They provide technological solutions in software, equipment and oilfield services to the marketplace and currently have offices based in Mumbai and Deheradun.

The appointment of these international representatives is an important step for SpectrumData, which will not only enable the Company to strengthen links with current US and Indian clients, but will also enable SpectrumData to broaden those customer bases within these two important regions.

Commenting on the two selections, Guy Holmes, SpectrumData’s Chief Executive Officer said: "We are delighted to have been able to make these appointments. Chris Lashley comes to us with such extensive experience and credentials and Reservoil are such a dynamic and well established company within the Indian marketplace. They will be charged with growing the SpectrumData brand within these marketplaces, and as a result, assist in the overall expansion of SpectrumData into new industry sectors and markets. "

We are currently seeking to appoint agents and representatives in other parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Central and South America.  If you are interested in becoming a partner of SpectrumData, or would like to find out more information, please click here to find out more.

For more details or to see the full media releases, please click here.

Government Technology World Australia and New Zealand

5-6 April 2006, The National Convention Centre, Canberra, AustraliaSpectrumData is a major sponsor of the 2006 Government Technology World Conference, which is being held in Canberra on 5^th & 6^th April.  Government Technology World 2006 is Australia's most comprehensive and strategic public sector event. The conference will provide an excellent opportunity for stakeholders across Australia to meet and discuss the challenging issues that face the public sector ICT industry.

As a valued customer of SpectumData, we are able to offer you a 15% discount off the normal registration fee.  To register for this event, of for more information, visit www.terrapinn.com/2006/gtw_au or call +61 2 9005 0777.

SpectrumData is expected to complete the installation of its Fibre Optic delivery and retrieval system on 1 January 2006.

The installation of fibre guarantees almost limitless bandwidth between the SpectrumData Data Centre and its customers sites allowing data to be transferred directly from customer offices to SpectrumData for processing.

As an example of what can be done, SpectrumData will be able to create tapes for JV partners directly from our customers servers without the need for the customer to send us the data on disk or tape for processing.  Alternatively, if you are one of the JV partners awaiting the receipt of data, SpectrumData can transfer that data direct to your desktop without the need for you to have to load the data from tapes into your workstations.

To find out more about the services, please contact us on +61 (8) 9470 6844.

Turtle Cases – Storage Protection for your Valuable Data In Transit

Do you currently use off site storage facilities? If yes, how do you ensure adequate protection of data while it is in transit?

Turtle cases are magnetic tape storage and transport cases which consist of a hard outer shell, with a moulded internal casing designed specifically to fit your tapes and cartridges. The cases protect the media from tape damage due to shock or impact, foreign debris and temperature/humidity extremes during transit. They are highly recommendation by leading tape and drive manufacturers including IBM, Imation and StorageTek.

SpectrumData are currently offering a New Year special on the purchase of all turtle cases – 10% off the RRP of all LTO, DLT, 3590 and 3592 storage cases in all sizes. If you would like a quotation for a Turtle Case, or for more information, please click here.

All Washed Up

Earlier this year we received a consignment of approximately 500 3480 data cartridges from a client for conversion and migration to a higher density media. The delivery arrived at our Perth premises late in the afternoon on a gloomy and very wet winters day, with not a clear sky nor ray of sunshine in sight.

At first sight of the 3480 media on arrival of the shipment, our Library Supervisor took a double take. The tapes had arrived packed into cardboard boxes (not unusual by any means), but they were neatly stacked on the back tray of an open tray delivery vehicle - uncovered and obviously having already absorbed a large volume of rain which had fallen from the skies above. The storage boxes were completely rain soaked and were visibly deteriorating before our eyes. It appears that the boxes had been on the back of the delivery vehicle for most of the day, and this in fact was the last drop off before the driver headed home.

After very carefully unloading and transferring the waterlogged tapes and boxes from the back of the ute to the inside of our premises, we were able to more closely inspect and identify the extent of the water damage to the tapes. We were able to ascertain that approximately 60% of the consignment had received moderate water damage, and 30% had received considerable water damage – with only 10% escaping relatively unscathed.

After an initial manual "cartridge draining" exercise, SpectrumData were able to quickly heat treat the cartridges sufficiently to remove a large proportion of the remaining moisture that was preventing the tapes from being correctly read and which would caused untold havoc with our specialist in-house equipment and hardware. With careful handling and the use of our proprietary data recovery tools, we were able to achieve access and recovery of all the data contained in the rain soaked tapes, and after cleaning and dehumidifying, the tapes were meticulously transcribed and a 100% recovery rate was achieved.

A final thought to ponder………..while the correct handling procedures and guidelines for the transportation of magnetic media may be a second language for you – don’t assume that courier companies or other third parties also understand the requirements. Please ensure that you clearly specify the exact transportation requirements up front, spelling out the obvious - like not carrying the delivery in an open top delivery vehicle!!. Other requirements are the storage of media away from magnetic fields and without exposure to extremes of temperatures.

For more information on the recommended handling, storage and transportation of magnetic tape media, please click here.

To view more Case Studies, please click here.