Hugh,

 

I can understand your concern about encryption keys, but as with all aspects
of backup it all comes down to competency.

 

Backup is a very specialized discipline within IT, as is data security. If
you are unable to cope with the challenges of encryption chances are you
probably don't have the expertise to have a usable backup anyway.

 

I took the opportunity to ask my backup software vendor Atempo for some
information on encryption as it stands with their product Time Navigator.

 

Here is what they told me:

 

The write times at the tape drive for encrypted or non-encrypted data should
be the same. A file is the same size regardless if it is encrypted.

BUT, there are lots of variables that could slowdown the backup throughput
for encrypted data, depending upon your environment. These are:

Encrypted data is more random. If you tested backups with uncompressed text
files verses the encrypted versions, you would see huge differences in tape
drive compression levels.

For data that is already compressed like video files, you would see no
difference in tape write speeds for the encrypted version.

Gerard

            


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