Introduction
Project Leader
Hiroaki Muraoka
Information storage technology has been developed along with computers from the very beginning, and has attained explosive growth through rapid expansion of information capacity because of the widespread use of the internet. In recent years, it has been increasingly evolving as an indispensable key technology supporting our advanced information society involving cloud computing, intelligent home appliances, big data, and other currents of development. It is noteworthy that perpendicular magnetic recording technology, which is an innovation that originated in Japan, has contributed greatly to this development. The Great East Japan Earthquake and its associated tsunami struck two years ago, causing long-term power failures and hindering access to emergency information. Much important information was lost because of damage to servers and storage infrastructure. Social losses were therefore considerable. Although the essential function of conventional storage technology is recognized as securing information in safety even after equipment has failed, this recent earthquake disaster reminded us that disaster resistance of the devices remains insufficient when a whole hub or region is destroyed completely by a massive disaster. The disaster revealed the necessity of developing a technology for accumulating large capacity information densely and of information storage technology that saves information in safety and which enables accesses to emergency information promptly and accurately even under circumstances of wide devastation.
Given that background, the Research Institute of Electrical communication at Tohoku University started research and development of information storage technology that is disaster-resistant and which contributes to construction of next generation IT infrastructure, which is the topic of this project. This is a funded research project sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Research organizations with participation by the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Hitachi Ltd., and Hitachi Solutions East Japan has just constructed a research organization and started research and development based in Sendai supported by the understanding and co-operation of many concerned institutions. In the future, we intend to make concerted efforts together to cultivate part of this new IT industry in the Tohoku district and to devote ourselves to reconstruction.
