Tale of the tape: How IBM ushered in the age of digital storage

http://bit.ly/IYrmyj

I recently attended several presentations that dealt with the Digital Storage issue and the speakers were basically stating that the claims by the IT Industry about D2-D2 and Cloud Storage are the IT equivalent of a Third World scam where they take advantage of disadvantaged people.

An industry that asks us to hand them our vital information assets, yet does not agree to protect them or even "not to disclose them or share them" and then proceeds to store them in systems they know are incapable over the long run of preserving them,  should be prosecuted by an Attorney General for fraud.   

This would be great grounds for a Class Action Lawsuit.  Deep pockets, clear fraud and deception and a sociopathic intent to repeat and repeat this same fraud.

The IT Industry cannot comply with the clear intent of Data Mapping and ESI in their current systems.  And they really have no one tasked to explore this requirement. Shouldn't the IT Manufacturers create a compliant system that tells the judge where every bit of data is and assures under threat of a prison sentence to provide a longevity to that data equivalent to the retention schedule mandated by the Law?

Where is ARMA in demanding this??  How about ARMA and the big auditing forms develop a standard whereby the IT manufacturers must show compliance in defining exactly where the vital records are stored and under penalty of law an assurance that the media can survive.  We are right back into "Digits to Dust" and ARMA and Records Managers are listening to the catastrophic events repeating themselves but not speaking out. (For a while I kept track but when every major player had their systems fail and each new day brought another failure, I quit writing them down.)

In a presentation by Fred Moore he pointed out the tremendous difference in the accuracy of tape versus totally digital storage. (3,000 time magnitude in error rate.)  The difference in reliability and it was an even greater difference.  And the fact that the issue of security was really mind boggling.  Since the hackers move faster at breaking the systems than the companies who make the systems, it is a losing battle.  IT totally understands this but assumes records managers, CEO's and Board of Directors are unaware or just stupid or don't care.

Tape back up has three decades of flawless performance and the new LTO5's make it jump light years ahead with its new drag and drop technology which improves density without increased failure rates.  But there is no money in just switching to a new and better tape storage device.  The money is in forcing new hardware and opening the door to charging clients for everyday storage. As one IT guy said, "It is like burying the data in rented tuxedos.  The only problem being, if they want to exhume the data for a trial some years later."  They admit that they might not be able to bring it back if it is required some years later.  (Like happens in litigation.)

Currently Class Action lawyers go after Doctors who are just trying to treat patients and pharmaceuticals who get caught in the law of numbers that no matter how great the drug, there are some who cannot tolerate it.   But the computer manufacturing industry knows what they are doing!  They are culpable.  They rely on the fact that when the Virtual systems fail that you will be onto the Cloud and when the Cloud is shown to be a big fraud that we will be moved onto the next thing.

Hackers and Industrial Espionage and Terrorism is real and I think that some smart Class Action Law Firm is going to see what I see and go after these extremely deep pockets.

But what would  be better, is if the Records managers in our World would speak out.  You could even join with the offsite storage industry as they are seeing the same thing happening to their clients over and over.   In the next few years we will see a big disaster and some large company will show up at their Disaster Recovery Hotsite and find out their back up system is somehow lost in the Cloud.  Maybe for a few hours or a few days but this event will start a revolution.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK
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