Tape Still Part of Quantum's Data Protection Strategy; Part 1 of 2

The trend away from tape as a primary target for backup is undeniable. Every size company from small and home offices (SOHOs) to the largest enterprise is in some way examining how to more effectively use disk in their backup strategy. This does not mean companies are abandoning the use of tape. In fact, 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.

The need to encrypt data was more clearly brought to light by a recent class action suits filed against TJX Companies, the parent company of TJ Maxx department stores, and Fidelity National Information Services (NYSE: FIS). The suit against TJX files for damages for the pain and suffering endured by credit and debit card customers as a result of security breach while the suit filed against FIS made no claim for damages but claimed negligence, invasion of privacy and breach of implied contract.

In the case of FIS, the suit alleges that FIS failed to immediately make the internal data breach publicly known and that prior to the public announcement by FIS, a California resident started noticing an influx of direct marketing and promotional offers as well as phone calls to his home. While the data compromised at FIS was the result of a senior database administrator misappropriating confidential consumer information, it is easy to extrapolate how these types of lawsuites can apply to companies who loose or cannot account for missing tapes. These types of cases are prompting more companies to act now and encrypt any data stored to tape.

I recently had conversations with two individuals at Quantum Corporation to discuss these trends in data protection and how Quantum is responding to them. Steve Whitner, Quantum's Disk Systems Product Marketing Manager, agrees that a transition is occurring from using tape as a primary target for backup to disk, with disk becoming the predominant way companies initially store their backup data. Though Quantum offers tape products, it also offers disk-based solutions, ranging from its entry and midrange DXi3500 and DXi5500 appliances to its high end DXi7500 system. Each of these disk-based products supports block-level deduplication and, in the case of the DXi7500, it supports the replication of data from the smaller DXi3500 and DXi5500 appliances to the DXi7500.

Since disk still costs more than tape on a raw per GB basis even with deduplication, companies need to find a balance between using disk and tape. Whitner said that in one particular case, all data that the client wrote to tape had to be written in non-rewritable format and stored for six months. Then at the end of the six months, the client needed to destroy the tape. By storing all of this data to disk and deduplicating it, the client was able to save on tape media costs to the tune of $200,000 annually, according to Quantum.

However the majority of users will not experience such a dramatic hard dollar savings by switching from tape to disk. If anything, the cost of using a disk system with deduplication will at best match what it costs companies to store and manage data on tape. Companies will see their biggest savings coming in the form of soft dollars in terms of how much time their staff spends troubleshooting tape backups, how they're more quickly restoring data and managing daily offsite tape rotations.

Tape's best fit now for many companies will likely take place in its new role of long term data retention and offsite data storage. Many companies will find it more economical to keep storing data on tape for these purposes since the growth of data in most companies' production data stores still exceeds the ability of companies to backup and store this data.

However once the data moves from disk to tape, the new problem that emerges is the risk of compromised data. One of tape's largest benefits - its portability - is also becoming a liability in this day and age since, theoretically, anyone with the right tape hardware and software can restore the data on a lost or misplaced tape. This could result in a scenario comparable to what TJX Companies is experiencing now so more companies are looking to encrypt data as they store it to tape to mitigate this risk. How Quantum supports encrypting data stored on tape and performs the encryption key management will be the focus of the next blog entry.