Is Tape Backup dead?
Posted in Storage Applications, Storage Management, Advisor - Joe Disher by Joe DisherI remember when all you had to do was choose which tape drive or library you were going to use to backup your data. Media capacity and speed had to be considered – and, of course your budget. Now with all the options for disk-based backup; snapshots, replication and mirroring techniques, Virtual Tape Libraries (VTL), and the latest three letter acronym in storage (CDP – Continuous Data Protection), does that old archaic tape technology still have a place? I think so… doesn’t it?
Let’s dig a little deeper. With disk-based backup techniques you can replicate data asynchronously on a scheduled basis; you can mirror data real-time; you can migrate older data to lower cost storage based on policies; or you can simply make the disk look just like a tape. There are even some products out there that let you remove disk drives after backup just like tape media for offsite storage.
I personally am a firm believer in layers of protection. I think you need to protect the “crown jewels” of the company the most in more than one way. You should probably mirror the data onsite and to another location, if possible. You should also have at least a weeks worth of snapshots maintained locally for fast recovery of data. And yes, I still believe you need to have a tape backup of that oh-so-critical data kept offsite, just for that special occasion, when you must recover all of your data due to some catastrophic incident.
For less critical data, maybe just some offsite replication technique will suffice. You can even sign up for an Internet based service to handle this for backing up your clients remotely. In any event – if the data is important and you want to ever see it again if something goes horribly wrong – back it up to tape. And of course, please, please, please…. Test your recovery!
You can use snapshots, a VTL or CDP or any other disk-based backup technique to decrease your backup window or exposure to data loss – but having a successful, well maintained tape backup solution may be the best security blanket you can deploy to help you sleep well at night.
Joe
October 19th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Joe-
I”m an SMB! How can I afford to have mirrors both onsite and offsite as well as tape?
Ed
October 20th, 2005 at 9:55 am
Ed-
You’re absolutely right. Having mirrors and tape may not be an affordable solution for your environment.
It’s generally a good idea to catagorize your data by importance when determining any sort of tiered backup strategy. You may determine that for a very small set of business critical data it is important to keep multiple copies around. This should help to justify the cost of such a configuration. In some instances, you may discover that it is sufficient for 95% of your data to be backed up to tape only.
If you have a backup window problem, then snapshots or VTL techniques may be an integral part of your backup strategy.
I think it’s important to understand the value of your data. Once you’ve done that, you can start to make the right decisions about how to protect it.
Good luck Ed!
Joe
January 10th, 2006 at 3:27 am
I think most of the “backup” methods outside from tape are not real backup.
Just think for a second: flood, fire…. real backup means tape backup, like it or not. So just spend your money in a robust tape backup and forget about all the other buzz around…
Well that’s my thought.
January 24th, 2006 at 11:09 am
I happen to also think Tape is not dead either.
there is definitely a place for Tape. If you need stable, permanent storage. Tape is one alternative.
Having said that, disk-to-disk-to-tape is also another VALID form of backup, that can augument a tape strategy, and eliminate some of the latencies Tape introduces, especially if you have a limited backup window. This is its strength.
imho
Steve