Back up tapes are like America.  We are not perfect but no one has developed a country that is better.  (Of course, every country thinks that way about themselves.) 

The entire computer industry publishing empire is all selling their technology and honest opinions can never be found.  Find out who just handed Gartner or Forrester or other consultants a big wad of cash and you will see what their next great technology is.

There is a constant stream of articles talking about how the Cloud has shortcomings and failures (always from the User End, not from the seller end!) You could write a thesis on E-Discovery and the Cloud and the shortcomings.

Nothing in the Cloud prevents redundant files.  Unless you have reduplication and then it works for the Cloud and everything else.

Tapes are the most secure and the lowest cost way to store back up data.  Every report from reliable consultants like Horison (Fred Moore) and others point to lower Bit Error Rates, less opportunity for hackers to tamper with the data and extremely cost efficient storage rates.

> "Do what I did when I was a CIO. Take incremental backups every night. Take full backups every weekend. Keep 2 weeks of backups and then re-use the tapes. Every few months, replace tapes before they wear out and destroy the old ones.
> 
> Or better yet, move your backups off of tape.
> 
> If someone accidently deletes something, backups are not the answer. If a system dies, backups are the answer. If a storage array dies, backups are the answer.”
> 

No large firm would follow this strategy?  Or if they do, wait until the first legal action and see what happens?  That may be why in the article he referred to “when I was a CIO” as this is not a sound strategy.  A sound strategy is like an Amish Quilt.  It is made up of many pieces and they are seen together in a seamless fashion and the pattern is recognizable over and over in the total spread.

A few weeks of tapes do not cover the entire data archive. Proving the reliability of information stored in the Cloud could not be accomplished without a sound back up tape strategy.

> "If you have to keep something, don’t use tapes. There are other ways. There are several archive vendors out there that will gladly take your phone calls.”


The entire offsite storage model is changing. The volume of boxes stored offsite is constantly contracting. The Hostage Fees and shredding costs are driving companies to send less offsite, store what is offsite for a shorter period of time and many companies with reduced volumes store more and more in-house. Ask your CPA about storing records, they admit they store less and less as hard copy as the retention periods are shortening.

It would be a nice discussion to see what the current ideal Storage Quilt should be? It is not the same model as 10 years ago.  In a tight economy corporations will not abide $30 per box Hostage Fees. So this is causing the storage industry to contract.  Vital Records and back up tapes that are treated as Vital Records. The purpose of Information Governance in many companies is based on developing a strategy that lowers cost of offsite storage, reducing the printing of documents, governing what can and cannot be in the Cloud and being as aggressive as possible on Retention Schedules.

That Amish Quilt analogy doesn’t look so bad when you consider all of these issues?  If I could attach a photo you would totally agree.  The repetitive pattern that is as perfect as a snowflake and not one flaw in the reproduction of the elements.

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