It is amazing to watch the new technology roll up on the beach of records management only to be swept off to oblivion with the next wave of technology.  If we compare the IT Industry to say the Pharmaceutical industry, imagine the chaos they would create in the health field.

You would be presented a drug that is miraculous, begin to rely on it; only to find that it has huge side effects that are harmful to your health.

So we see several large players in the Cloud decide it is not secure, it is not reliable and the risk  exposure is too much to take on. The proclamation that Tape is Dead are as false as the Obituary for Mark Twain that he himself refuted. Iron Mountain being a industry leader into and now away from the Cloud.

The Storage Network Conference proclaimed Tape as still viable due to its ease of use, its ability to provide security for information assets (you can't hack what isn't available) and the fact that taking information assets offline saves money.  (It costs 40% more to maintain information online with cooling costs, energy costs for servers and staff cost to keep it all running all the time.)  In fact, the phrase "Virtual" has become somewhat of a dirty word.

So Records Managers saw the "King has no clothes" and warned against the headlong rush to Clouds and other nonsense. Already we are reading about hacking the Cloud. Huge PII exposures will be the news in coming months. 

Why are there not Class Action Lawsuits against the IT Industry for selling defective products.  Is it because the IT Managers are not willing to admit they were hoodwinked once again?? If Merck behaved like the big IT hardware and software companies the health effects would be catastrophic.  Where is the accountability?

In the tape world, the LTO-5's new Linear Tape File System (LTFS) technology creates an ability to migrate to a whole new type of tape as tape improvements occur. So a primary issue for IT and Records Management of migrating information to new formats is resolved with this technology and others are now matching this technique. Plus information on tape is encrypted so security is assured.

As usual the problems we see in the IT industry are related to the fact that people believed the hype, bought the bleeding edge technology and now pay the price. Like the huckster at the Carnival, they ask that you pay in advance to see the mystical secrets but the reality is never quite what the man in front of the tent promises. The first clue was referring to Virtual King's Clothes and vanishing mists called Clouds. We can rely on Larry Medina to look under the tent and tell us, "It's a trick, don't give them your money!" ;~)


Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM


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