Is Tape Backup Dead Comments

Bill Hobbib

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:24:25 -0500

Bruce,
Thanks for a very useful post outlining the various alternatives to tape! We were pleased to see two of your bulleted options support our partnership with Compellent--using existing backup software and writing to an onsite disk-based backup system with deduplication, and sending that deduplicated backup data offsite to a secondary location for disaster recovery. Indeed, sending the deduplicated backup sets across a standard WAN is now very practical, and the remote location can serve two purposes--WAN-efficient replication from the primary site, and also a local backup if that site has its own data center. When the costs of tape media, transportation and labor are considered--and the speed of recovering data from disk vs tape, it is a very appealing alternative to tape for many users.

Thanks again!

Bill Hobbib
ExaGrid Systems
www.exagrid.com

Kelly Lipp

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:55:47 -0500

Scott,

I'll provide a few company names that are offering software to help with archiving. That said, the optimum solution doesn't exist yet: fully automated, infinitely flexible and totally customizable. I'm hopeful we'll have all of that one day.

For now, though, two members of the Active Archive Alliance will work for you: www.qstar.com and www.filetek.com.

These products function quite differently, but both can get you started on your way toward the more correct use of tape!

Thanks,

Kelly Lipp
Storage Architect
Cuerno Verde Consulting, Inc.

Bruce Kornfeld

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:37:03 -0500

Scott: Great to hear from you. I had the pleasure of meeting Amanda last week at VMworld - she was part of our customer/analyst dinner with Heineken, SAVVIS, Gartner, IDC and a few others.

There are a few software partners within the Active Archive that can help manage archive data between disk and tape (http://activearchive.com/). Feel free to contact me directly and I'd be glad to spend some time with you to discuss further and understand exactly what you're trying to accomplish. (bruce.kornfeld at Compellent)

Bruce

Scott Himes

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:08:00 -0500

Bruce,
Thank you for this very helpful blog post! It dovetails into conversations we are having at our institution right now.

Are there tape archival systems available now that integrate with Compellent SANs that would allow for the type of active data migration and archival that you describe? If so, could you post some product names?

Thanks again!
Scott Himes
Biola University

Bruce Kornfeld

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:36:55 -0500

I completely agree, Tom. $$/GB - wise, tape is an extremely cost effective way to store data for a long period of time. Its just that putting tapes in a bunker somewhere with the idea of RESTORING from an outage might be a thing of the past. Using tape to store data in an online archive is the future.

Bruce

Tom Trainer

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:59:54 -0500

Bruce,
Nice blog post. In general, I agree with you. Tape for archiving is catching on...Spectra Logic would agree with that as evidenced by the recent press release indicated 22% growth in tape...for archiving. While it certainly is a mature technology, tape is not dead - it's evolving.