This article exposes a great deal of information that an RM should  
become familiar with in the course of your profession. Great job Peter

In many cases I  have seen, the defendant for fear of violating their  
responsibility, continues to save all of their back up tapes that are  
merely for business continuity. Imagine you are rotating 100 tapes per  
week or 1000 tapes per week and now instead of the typical  
Grandfather, Father, Son methodology, you keep each set of tapes  
indefinitely.  In the course of a typical movement to trial, you would  
end up with thousands of unnecessary tapes.  All at a cost of $50.00  
or more per unit and the resultant storage on same.  Plus, even if you  
win you might feel compelled to save them for a period of time as a  
safety measure thus increasing your costs further.  Knowing the law  
here will help your company save some money.

Your company should also immediately call for discovery on the  
plaintiff to provide information on why they believe you are  
culpable.  This places them under the same duty to provide a data map,  
to preserve thousands of tapes and all the costs you will need to  
spend to defend yourself.  Now you are at least on the same playing  
field.

It would be a great Disaster Recovery drill to develop a "Data  
Mapping" of your company.  After all, a law suit is a disaster.  Why  
not prepare for it.  Plus you can show the Judge your company, in good  
faith, keep track of your Data Map, so you will be in compliance.

Even if management says no to the idea, the fact that you brought it  
to their attention makes them aware of what an asset you will be in  
the event of litigation. [Be sure to have your house in order first.   
You don't want to be caught short on being able to fulfill your  
responsibility on providing the map on your own collection.]

In this economy, that is a good thing.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
[log in to unmask]
(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM

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