> Let me ask a similar question: How does one audit a third party records
> storage provider? 
> 
> In other words, the details will differ but the process will be similar as
> will much of the information to obtain: how is information stored, where is
> it stored, under what conditions, etc. It's not as different as your
> question posits. 
> 
> 
> Jesse Wilkins, CIP, CRM

In an offsite records storage center I can geographically pinpoint each and every back up tape to a physical, even GPS located, position. I can fix it in time and space.  I could show that on my data map that tapes 1 through 7 were in Gemtrac #4, Drawer five, slots 24 through 29 and tape #7 was in a Perm-a-stor container driving down  Madison Avenue in the 2200 block at exactly 12:07 in the afternoon. I can document that this media stayed in ANSI temperature & humidity  controls, were magnetically shielded and who was allowed in the vicinity of the tape during any moment in time.  I can track the actual remaining life of the tape by its usage and internal chip.  I don't believe Sigma 6 exists but this is pretty solid compared to the server world where one corrupt bit can destroy files.

Offsite media storage has become an incredibly precise world where everything is tracked by software (Docudata, Oneil, DHS Total Recall, etc) and vans are tracked and drivers use barcode scanners to record each step in a rotation.

Records Managers played a big role in this as they were the ones who pushed the Industry to step up the specifications for storage after the Digits to Dust events. Now will Records Managers be the guy/girl on the White Horse to stop the IT world from moving vital information assets into an untrackable wilderness.

In the Cloud they don't even want to know where it is and that means if it disappears, they won't know it is gone.  If you read their software agreements, they tell you exactly what will scare the heck out of you.  They make you agree that you know they can't always get it back, they can't stop it from being stolen, hacked or sabotaged and you must agree to that as part of their contract.  They modeled their agreements after the Carnival tickets.  You know going in you will be in danger and before it is done they will make you sick.  I expect that from a CARNIE but not from my IT Department.


Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
[log in to unmask]
(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]