Entries categorized under “Tape Systems”

Overland Storage's ULTAMUS RAID near-line data protection products and REO SERIES disk-based backup solutions provide a solid starting point for addressing customers' data protection requirements. However, Pendekanti astutely points out that the market is ravenous for innovation and it's obvious from recent management changes that Overland Storage feels the need to pick up the pace to become more competitive in the rapidly changing data protection market. (read more)

It is easy to understand why disk-based backup solutions such as Quantum's DXi Series are growing in popularity as a primary target for backups. Disk shortens backup times, expedites recoveries and removes the inconsistent results that tape delivers when used as a primary backup target. However the difficulties that arise with using disk as a primary backup target are less intuitive. Disk solves the immediate pain of backup but creates other less intuitive, longer term data management issues. (read more)

The more pressing question is not which method should companies choose to encrypt data but, "How do companies generate and manage the encryption keys that are used to encrypt and decrypt the data?" The obstacle here is that there is no industry standard way to generate or manage encryption keys long term. (read more)

A majority of organizations still rely on tape as their primary means of data protection. However, with the increasing popularity of disk-based backup, companies are repurposing tape for their offsite data storage and longer term data retention needs. As they do so, new requirements for tape encryption and encryption key management are emerging. I recently had conversations with two individuals at Quantum Corporation to discuss these trends in data protection and how Quantum is responding to them. (read more)