Jeff,

There is much to be concerned with when it comes to E-Vaulting.

Before you can start outlining these concerns you have to first define
E-Vaulting.

E-Vaulting is not disk to disk backup as many people believe. Disk to Disk
backup has been done for decades. In fact I remember doing backups to
removable disks then shipping them offsite just like tape (and you could not
use those suckers as hockey pucks, if you looked at them the wrong way they
had to be replaced).

Anyhow, as I see it E-Vaulting is simply the process of getting your data
offsite electronically, rather than writing it to removable media, then
physically moving it.

The only difference then is where and how it is stored. Perhaps it could be
stored on a disk drive in India, then written off to tape anyway.

The problems comes down to the ownership of that data when it arrives at the
other end.

If the E-Vaulting company leases its equipment and then goes under the repo
man doesn't care if the disk has your data.
The repo man is under absolutely no obligation to even format the disk
before he sells it on.

There is a new video staring John Cleese
http://www.backuptrauma.com/video/default2.aspx that basically says tape
bad, e-vaulting good.

I am not sure who the video is targeted at, but it seems pretty pointless to
paint IT people as incompetent when it comes to backup when they are the
usual decision maker (I half expected to see Manwell running the tape
library, instead it was a transvestite Cleese who seemed to be obsessed with
his own cleavage).

The video uses the example of a virus hitting a small company. Now if the
company is susceptible to virus, then why is the E-Vault not. In fact I
would expect an E-Vault would be a prime target for hackers.

The reason all serious companies continue to use tape is that it can be
written and read at many times the speed of even the most bleeding edge of
networks. Once the tapes are written they are take offline and sent offsite
where they are unavailable to the hackers and any worker feeling a little
postal.

E-Vaulting people have absolutely no concept of DR. Tapes are not sent
offsite so that someone can restore a word document. They are sent offsite
as the last bastion of hope for a company who has suffered a catastrophic IT
failure.

If you want to have generational backups so that you can restore those word
documents all you have to do is pick from the many products that store the
backups locally such as DFHSM on the mainframe and shadow copy on the UNIX
and Windows platforms.

Gerard


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Fronius [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 4:58 AM
Subject: e-vaulting concerns

Hi All,
Can any of the IT gurus on the listserve share your concerns regarding
e-vaulting vs. traditional tape backup?

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