Entries categorized under “Physical Tape”

Even if you do not closely monitor the data storage space, chances are still above average that you have seen headlines about BNY Mellon Bank losing unencrypted backup tapes and the ensuing media storm that surrounded this disaster. Since that loss occurred, the aftermath has expanded to affect clients from two other banks. Data losses can occur for any reason. They could be the work of a well-disciplined, external network attack or simply stumbling corporate negligence. In either case, it is unfortunately customers who suffer most as their personal information is compromised. (read more)

While the tape market is not growing as fast as it was in previous years, IDC announced that in calendar year 2007 LTO drive shipments increased by 15 percent over the previous year and the midrange tape automation market generated $1.3 billion in revenue. This robust market continues to spur innovation from companies such as Overland Storage, whose customer base still heavily relies upon NEO SERIES tape libraries and the ARCvault family of autoloaders and libraries as part of their data protection strategies. According to Peri Grover, Overland Storage's Director of Product Management, innovation remains important to the company's customers because their data storage requirements continue to grow. "It may seem obvious, but companies still need technologies - including tape technologies - that can keep up with this growth," she says. (read more)

We can all get caught up in the hoopla of new and slick storage technology features and lose sight of some the most important and basic details that keep our storage fabrics up and humming. Among these are the Fibre Channel cabling infrastructures and the distance limitations incurred by continued increases in FC speeds. These are the ones that can be easily, but inappropirately, overlooked inside the data center. (read more)

I started out the day with an hour-long briefing with Xiotech's CTO Stephen J Sicola and Storage Architect Peter Selin. Xiotech has been talking up a storm about the ground-shaking importance of its new Intelligent Storage Elements (ISE) ever since Xiotech announced it at Storage Networking World about a month ago. However Xiotech and I have not had a chance to connect for me to take a close look at its architecture so Stephen and Peter spent some time talking me through it. (read more)

Once Energy XXI's IT Director Andrew Schaefer had determined that a traditional tape backup system was not going to fit the needs of Energy XXI long term, he began to explore the possibility of using a hosted third party backup and recovery solution. Driving this decision was a number of factors. (read more)

Last week I saw a first-of-its-kind announcement in an April 9th press release from Asigra. What specifically caught my eye in the press release were some comments that Energy XXI had found that using disk in place of tape still proved too slow and unreliable while lacking offsite capabilities. Disk's inability to send data offsite came as no big surprise but the references in the press release to disk being too slow and unreliable when used in backup caught me a bit off-guard. (read more)