Entries categorized under “Tape Systems”

Today's release of CommVault Simpana 8 continues to reflect CommVault's commitment to deliver enterprise data protection and management using a single product with multiple application modules. Yet it is Simpana 8's new global block-based data deduplication feature and new ability to deduplicate data stored to tape that is likely to raise excitement. Making these features integral to Simpana 8, CommVault does more than just give enterprises another deduplication option or simply lower tape costs. Instead it starts to put CommVault on a collision course with deduplicating storage appliances and even traditional tape devices while giving organizations new reason to ponder their longer term deduplication strategy. (read more)

Recently a blog entry appeared on the Byte & Switch website that asks the question if tape will be cancelled due to a lack of customer interest. In short, the author of the article, George Crump, postulates that customers are losing interest in tape partly because tape manufacturers are taking more interest in selling disk than tape. As a result, more innovations are occurring in disk libraries while tape libraries languish. But has tape in fact outlived its usefulness? (read more)

Disposing aging, depreciated or unneeded tape cartridges is an age old problem that companies resolve in one of three ways: they destroy them; they store them; or, they trade them in for hard cash or credits from resellers. This last option generates more than passing interest from companies since it offers them the opportunity to generate some revenue (or at least offset the cost of new tape cartridges). However the liabilities associated with the data on these recycled tape cartridges landing up in the wrong hands may outweigh whatever cost savings companies hope to achieve. (read more)

Our understanding of LTO-4 tape drive encryption is that individual tape drive vendors may encrypt data in different manners. We cautioned that if you have not standardized on an LTO-4 tape drive vendor, an LTO-4 tape cartridge encrypted by one vendor's drive may not be readable on another's LTO-4 tape drive. Our specific quote was "So even if all your tape drives are LTO-4, if they are from different vendors, an LTO tape encrypted by one tape drive may not work in another." (read more)

While SaaS (Software as a Service) gets most of the press, SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) is finding its way into increasing numbers of corporate data centers. Parallel SCSI is a proven and reliable data transfer standard and serves the data center well, but all good things must eventually come to an end. With U320 parallel SCSI being the last stop on the SCSI roadmap, and with the advantages SAS has to offer over parallel SCSI, SAS is almost a certainty for the industry at large and your company specifically. (read more)

In a previous blog entry we discussed different technologies available to encrypt backup tapes and the unlimited liabilities associated with the breach of an unencrypted backup tape. Making sure the data on that tape is encrypted, however, is not an automatic cure-all. After all, encryption is only as strong as your key management and, in some states, encrypting backup tapes is no longer enough to protect your company from future risks. (read more)

Overland Storage's ULTAMUS RAID near-line data protection products and REO SERIES disk-based backup solutions provide a solid starting point for addressing customers' data protection requirements. However, Pendekanti astutely points out that the market is ravenous for innovation and it's obvious from recent management changes that Overland Storage feels the need to pick up the pace to become more competitive in the rapidly changing data protection market. (read more)

It is easy to understand why disk-based backup solutions such as Quantum's DXi Series are growing in popularity as a primary target for backups. Disk shortens backup times, expedites recoveries and removes the inconsistent results that tape delivers when used as a primary backup target. However the difficulties that arise with using disk as a primary backup target are less intuitive. Disk solves the immediate pain of backup but creates other less intuitive, longer term data management issues. (read more)

The more pressing question is not which method should companies choose to encrypt data but, "How do companies generate and manage the encryption keys that are used to encrypt and decrypt the data?" The obstacle here is that there is no industry standard way to generate or manage encryption keys long term. (read more)

A majority of organizations still rely on tape as their primary means of data protection. However, with the increasing popularity of disk-based backup, companies are repurposing tape for their offsite data storage and longer term data retention needs. As they do so, new requirements for tape encryption and encryption key management are emerging. I recently had conversations with two individuals at Quantum Corporation to discuss these trends in data protection and how Quantum is responding to them. (read more)