There seems to be a belief that if you're a smaller shop or smaller
business, you don't have a lot of data, and you don't need to send
your data offsite very often. A lot of times, the decision to send
tapes offsite is dictated, unfortunately, by
the growing capacity of tape media. If you're backing up 100
gigabytes a week, it becomes embarrassing to
a lot of folks to send that tape cartridge offsite because it's
not full. So, a lot of companies have a tendency to want to fill
that tape before they send it offsite -- which is a big, big
mistake.
Regardless of the size of the organization, there is an equal
requirement to protect your data. Because you're a smaller company
doesn't mean you can afford to go out of business. But
unfortunately, there's this perception that tapes have to be filled
up. From our perspective, we always say the best practice is daily.
Again, this is closely tied with your recovery point objective
(RPO).
If your RPO is 24 hours, meaning that I can afford to lose up to
24 hours worth of data (but no more), people say, "I'll back up
every day and I'll be OK." That's true only if you send your tapes
offsite every day. If you back up every night and you send your
tapes offsite every week, you can lose up to a week's worth of
data. People don't necessarily think about that. They think they're
backing up every night; it's good, they're protected. But, should
something happen to your entire data center, all of a sudden you're
nightly
backup is irrelevant and you're stuck
recovering from the previous week's backups. Can you recreate
this week of lost data? Maybe, maybe not.
It ties back into criticality of the data and potential losses.
So, if you stand to lose a lot of money because you lost a week's
worth of data, maybe it is worth buying more tapes and sending
these tapes offsite daily as opposed to weekly. It's a very
important concept that a lot of companies seem to sometimes mix
up.
@24727 Also, you should never send your unique data copy
offsite. That's another mistake. The problem here is we have a
single copy. Best practices would dictate that you keep a copy
onsite for quick access and quicker
recovery, and you send a copy offsite for
disaster recovery purposes. You should always have two copies of
your tape; one onsite and one sent offsite. With the low cost of
tapes today, I don't think it's worth neglecting.
Another important point when it comes to best practices with
respect to tape and vaulting is the storage conditions. The trunk
of your car is not a good vault -- especially if you live in
Phoenix. When it heats up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, your tapes may
not be recoverable or readable. A lot of companies will try to
store the tapes maybe to another location they have in an effort to
save money. Sometimes it's also a security concern, because they
don't want the tapes to be in someone else's hands, or they're
afraid the tapes may be lost. They try to develop the vaulting
process in house. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as the
storage conditions at the other location are optimal in terms of
temperature and relative humidity -- based on the tape
manufacturer's recommendations.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is where
technology like backup data deduplication and more specifically,
the replication part of it comes to the rescue one more time. If it
is not practical or cost effective to send partially filled tapes
offsite (especially those 400GB native capacity ones), if the tape
storage conditions at your other location are not optimal, or if
you don't your tapes in someone else hands, then maybe tape is not
the best choice. Backup to disk with remote replication is likely
the answer and, when combined with deduplication, is a cost
effective alternative to tape.
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