Snips from Ginny Jones:
>> Your questions bring a thousand thoughts and answers to mind,
I believe that CIO do not think of Archival Tape Storage like Records Managers think of “Permanent or Vital Records” and this is what opens the door for you in this discussion.
But Archival Storage is not always permanent storage. With proper storage environments, shield storage chambers, and security their concept of storage of an Archive could last 20 to 30 years. We can still find ways to read 3” floppies if we need to. Can’t we?
But you points are right on the money. But that is the great thing, when they mention archival storage, a records manager can jump wearing one of those trendy “Be Calm T-shirts” and it would say “Be Calm, Your Records Manager Has Got This!!” Referred to as “BCYRHGT” in the future. Certainly a mouthful for our RM Action Hero but lets face it Records Management has always been a mouthful.
This feeds into Information Governance but it is still and always will be Records Management. Electronic Records are Records. That is huge for the RM. Thank Larry and Fred and Dick “Would you like a side of White paper with those fries” King for making sure Electronic Records and Machine Readable Records are now records. And that is about Power and Control. ( Somebody in Arizona is laughing and saying… and its true!) At least I think so.
And isn’t that what is important here? Thinking about this and controlling this.
Ginny is right on the money but we can work through this with Records Management. The “BCYRHGT” RM can gain control again. You bring tape into your domain. You are probably not near the Data Center so you can be the storage location or you can take control of who does store the Archival Tape. There is already back-up tape or Cloud so that is why archival tape is even in the discussion.
>> Your questions bring a thousand thoughts and answers to mind, but I would like to comment on using tape as archival storage. 1 - it isn’t a long life media, it was never designed to be.
a) rethink how you view this archive. Think like the CIO. They think an archive is 5 years. Shoot boxes are being shred at the rate of a 3 to 5 year retention schedule. I hate to say it folks but I am going back to ARMA 2005 and I describe this as “You are in a new Records Paradise.” Or if you are a young whipper snapper, then we are in a new Modality. If boxes are shred in 5 years or even 7 years…. tape lasts that long in a proper environment.
b) The Cloud can make the move to a new set of tapes easier and Flash is coming along and that is more robust.
>> 2 - tape sizes change all the time, so would the tape drives necessary to restore them [even exist].
See how this makes you step in the middle of this!! You have answers to questions the CIO wants to know or certainly the Legal Department and the CFO. You are so prepared for this. The IT Manager is so head in the Cloud (see that was a great pun but where is the laughter.) I am mixing spicy humor with Fillet Mignon here.
>> In the past ten years, we have gone through 4 generations of tape drives and rotate the tapes several times before discarding. We only use tape for backup storage, not archival or retention storage.
Think back… Hmmmmm, has Zen state been achieved? Remember when the Cloud started and the shredding was so furious you could not fill those shredding containers fast enough. I bet there are no longer 11 copies of each record in storage like back in 1985. What did the records manager say? You try to slow down the Cloud but Cloud is cheap. Reducing the storage life at offsite from 16 years on average according to PRISM to less than 7 now and some say 3 years. You fought it. When will records managers learn that getting between the CFO and your Board of Directors and a “Dollar of expense averted” is a dangerous place for you.
There used to be 1000 offsite storage companies and lots of Self Storage places with records. Now there are less than 200 and maybe by now it is 150. The mergers and acquisitions drive this. Why does big storage buy little storage companies? Their shelves are emptying at a scary rate for them!! CIO’s, CFO’s and CEO’s are getting huge bonuses for reducing expenses. Shredding companies have increased from 250 just a decade ago to over 1,000+ companies. Read the tea leaves. If storage went down by 800 and shredding went up by 750 and you look at this trend when will this diatribe end if the conductor has no brakes on his train. The answer is to place yourself in control of Archival Tape because Big Data is for it. Try to benefit from their marketing instead of fighting them.
Back up tape is shortening its life-cycle. Cloud is increasing it. That benefit Big Data. But they miss those LTO sales and there are a whole bunch of Tape Drive and Tape Reader manufacturers out there going “Hey you Morons! We sold a billion jillion dollars of tape drives fix this.” Am I right?
So help them remind them that the new LTO’s and Flash Storage needs to be more robust and longer life. Call for specialized storage that you control. Help them fix the migration problem. My VHS system in the living room not only reads VHS but DVD in a separate slot. If they can invent RAI servers that are t levels of redundancy, think of the millions of dollars of multifaceted tape reader they can sell in their new TAPE Drive 2017 with exchangeable ports so they can add in a new drive to read LTO 6 and LTO 7 and Flash Drive just by adding components. Information Governance and RM and ARMA should come up with this pitch. They will laud you as heros as you just added a trillion dollars in profit to their bottom line and you management just bought a system that facilitate migration. Something IT never things of. The people who make tape will be buying you steak dinners and calling you chum.
As the “Music Man” taught us… learn to re-buckle your Knickerbockers below the knee. Archival tape offers management a sexy amount of security and pulls the Past Five Year Cloud stuff into even cheaper storage because tape is 15 times less expensive than Cloud and Online storage. (Horizon Solutions Research - Moore) So at 3 years pull it off cloud and into your tape archive. If it gets to 10 years tell them to use the LTO 6 Search and Lift and Drop to just move the needed stuff to a new tape if that time ever comes. It will be less volume.
But the important thing is the “BCYRHGT” RM is in the high level meeting where high tech and money saving are being discussed and your new solutions will solve problems they have not identified. The Black Swans if you will.
How cool would it be if you walked into the meeting with a Black Swan under your arm??? Glen’s already thinking about it. Gary Link is rebuckeling his knickerbockers because he was out front on this but he is calling Glen to say “It works better with a Stuffed Animal Toy Black Swan.
What if the Records Managers defined the ideal product to the Fuji, IBM and Oracle by starting a discussion with Gartner. They want to sell equipment. You want be in the Board Meetings and stay employed.
The questions are
1) So is that a lie? (That data centers don’t even have tape drives any more.)
2) If your Cloud provider sent you a stack of tapes from your cloud archive; What would you load them on?
WHERE WERE THE ANSWERS FOR 3 THROUGH 5?
3) Is this a propaganda program by the LTO tape producers? That archival tape is the new wish list?
My answer is it doesn’t matter. The sold Cloud. They sold RAID FIVE and they invented that stupid “Data Center in a Box. Like the “Music Man” they have the song
“Seventy-six trombones led the big parade With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand.
They were followed by rows and rows of the finest virtuosos, the cream of ev'ry famous band.
Seventy-six trombones caught the morning sun. With a hundred and ten cornets right behind
There were more than a thousand reeds Springing up like weeds
Big Data is singing this song and this time the music can be controlled by you.
4) Or wishful thinking?
Or too many metaphors or similes.
5) That would be a good thing for a records manager right?
I think it is but only Ginny had the 1,000 questions and provided the only answers. She and a few who replied off list apparently hear the melody. They could be the trumpeters in this band….
“And trumpeters who’d improvise A full octave higher than the score!”
Whippersnapper Young ‘Uns you can find this movie on YouTube. In this version you can be the Mayor or the Band Instrument Salesperson. You have to watch the movie to see who wins the sale, and the girl. So too can records managers here.
> From: "Harrelson, Amy" <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: GARP and then Not - Need Help
>
> All,
> We want to use a model similar to the GARP however out ultimate goal is not to place RIM under the IT environment. We see RIM as living under compliance and legal and really as a checks and balance mechanism and partner to IT to ensure things are being done correctly in the compliance realm.
This fits under the discussion above if you think about it. Walk into the the CFO and CIO meeting with a Black Swan under one arm and a Garp under the other. Which one will they react to?
Oh wait! You don’t know what a GARP looks like in reality? Neither does the CFO and the CIO. Drop the Mike…
Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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