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#1
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Tape Backups are NEVER Reliable - EVER
"Jolly Student" wrote in message et... Okay Folks: Here is one for all of you who thought that people could not get any dumber. Yes, I am cross posting here but the recommendations for such are only in the case where the subject matter concerns a bunch of groups. Your cross posts did not appear. What were the other NGs? I think this qualifies as such. I work for a mid-sized company (600 employees) whose "Technology Director" has openly said that "Tape backups are not reliable". For those of us who have been around for quite awhile that statement is very accurate. Tape backups have never been really relaible because tape technology is inherrently unrelaible. This director had a "consultant" come in to back up his assertion, a consultant who asked to check his email via his "AOL" account (indeed, his email address is something like ). Enough jokes aside - its going to get serious and this group seems to be spreading the rumor that "Tape Backups are Always Unreliable". They are right HOWEVER that does not mean that tapes have no useful purpose in any situation. So we now we have a huge, Raid 5 server that has a pretty decent amount of capacity and are using a company's software to that backups are quick and slick. Cool, my life is so much easier. But thats it. . . we do NOT have an offsite backup, we do NOT have another inhouse SDLT tape backup drive and the entire compliment of our backup resides ONLY on this single Network Attached Raid 5 server. Sure, its housed in a closet somewhere, but what if we had a catastrophic failure, how about a huge fire, or a plane hitting us. The issue of tapes and offsite backups have little to do with one another. Offsite backups are generally mandatory. See, this "consultant" has "clients" in Manhattan who have their offices on the 89th floor, but their Tapeless Backup servers in the basement. Basement is ok but basement of a building three blocks away is better and best of all is in a granite mine on a different continent....well no best is in quantum entangled storage in another galaxyg. Errr, is it me or do basements and the safes that may be contained therein get buried under rubble, or are there some group of IT specialists out there who specialize in nothing but digging out backup servers from the rubble. It's all a cost risk issue. There may be an inexpensive high bandwidth link easily available to the tapeless backup server in the basement but the link gets vastly more expensive as the distance grows. For instance generally such a link within a building has no regulatory requirements except for fire code on the wires themselves. Run that same link to a building three blocks away may get into a whole bunch of regulated arenas and costs. Tapeless backup is clearly the way to go in most situations. As stupid as this question is, I need to basically find credible, reliable sources of published information that basically say its really, really, really dumb to not archive stuff onto some type of medium tape or otherwise. You wont find any really smart such claims as tapes just aren't the answer in many cases. Backup has little to do with tape. Backup criteria include: Offsite. How far is the question? How many independent(in both number and location) offsite backup copies are really needed? Many of the existant backup cycle strategies come from tape technology and are often just bunk for pure backup strategy. How does backup strategy fit with the overall recovery strategy. If the whole 90 story building collapses then do you have a recovery strategy whereby the business can start again in two days in temp facilities in NJ(was the building occupied when it collapsed?)? Maybe the backups in a hard basement can be dug out faster than the business can start functioning again? This Raid 5 server that we have at our company is not a bottomless pit, but the higher ups do not listen to me, only to the "director" who, along with their "consultant" has them believing that the system we currently have in place is relable. If well designed it IS rather reliable. Normally I would just shut my face since my life is a lot easier in terms of backup, hell, set it and forget it is the name of the game. However, I know full well that if we ever got hit with a major disaster the "director" would be off on his vacation while the rest of us poor slobs had to restore data from God knows where. Oh, and if we were to get hit by a brand new, spanking virus because the "director's" kid came in and did so, well, our Network Attached Storage pig would also suffer. Not if well designed. The 'backup server' I've been talking about is a server specifically designed for backups and nothing else and therefore would be highly immue from such external attacks. In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some type of white paper, from some type of credible sources, that SDLT tape backup drives, at least for the purpose of long term archiving Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving" medium. are not "unreliable" , they are only as "unreliable" as the poor work habits of the person who is responsible for them. Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup strategy should look more towards the least common denominator...Murphy....an automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law is that tapes are unrelaible. The proof of that is the incredible cycle strategies that have developed over the years for tape backups. That comes from the fact that too frequently the tape isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons. Oh, and for the record, dear friends of mine swear by SDLT tape drives and the like, but I cannot bring an IT manager from CitiCorp into this discussion because, since he is a friend of mine, his opinion is not "neutral". Tapes are on their way out in many situations(NOT ALL). For all modest configuration servers and workstations I'm telling folks to use removeable SATA HDs in trays with good carrying cases for offsite backup. Firewire or USB2 is also viable. |
#2
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Jolly Student, you and I are cut from the same mold. You try to make life
better for all, but are stymied by stupidity. You will go far, but not at that company. Do what you can, but keep packing your bags with successes that you can point to when you apply for next job which will be at a company with more reasonable people. Ask this at your next team meeting: If this company can pack all those numb-nuts into one room why can't they pack the important company data onto a single backup tape? Of course, that is a stupid thing to say, and you will be labeled a controversial oddball. But at least you can practice giving them the finger each time your career takes another flush down the toilet. I would like to know how it goes. "Ron Reaugh" wrote in message ... "Jolly Student" wrote in message et... Okay Folks: Here is one for all of you who thought that people could not get any dumber. Yes, I am cross posting here but the recommendations for such are only in the case where the subject matter concerns a bunch of groups. Your cross posts did not appear. What were the other NGs? I think this qualifies as such. I work for a mid-sized company (600 employees) whose "Technology Director" has openly said that "Tape backups are not reliable". For those of us who have been around for quite awhile that statement is very accurate. Tape backups have never been really relaible because tape technology is inherrently unrelaible. This director had a "consultant" come in to back up his assertion, a consultant who asked to check his email via his "AOL" account (indeed, his email address is something like ). Enough jokes aside - its going to get serious and this group seems to be spreading the rumor that "Tape Backups are Always Unreliable". They are right HOWEVER that does not mean that tapes have no useful purpose in any situation. So we now we have a huge, Raid 5 server that has a pretty decent amount of capacity and are using a company's software to that backups are quick and slick. Cool, my life is so much easier. But thats it. . . we do NOT have an offsite backup, we do NOT have another inhouse SDLT tape backup drive and the entire compliment of our backup resides ONLY on this single Network Attached Raid 5 server. Sure, its housed in a closet somewhere, but what if we had a catastrophic failure, how about a huge fire, or a plane hitting us. The issue of tapes and offsite backups have little to do with one another. Offsite backups are generally mandatory. See, this "consultant" has "clients" in Manhattan who have their offices on the 89th floor, but their Tapeless Backup servers in the basement. Basement is ok but basement of a building three blocks away is better and best of all is in a granite mine on a different continent....well no best is in quantum entangled storage in another galaxyg. Errr, is it me or do basements and the safes that may be contained therein get buried under rubble, or are there some group of IT specialists out there who specialize in nothing but digging out backup servers from the rubble. It's all a cost risk issue. There may be an inexpensive high bandwidth link easily available to the tapeless backup server in the basement but the link gets vastly more expensive as the distance grows. For instance generally such a link within a building has no regulatory requirements except for fire code on the wires themselves. Run that same link to a building three blocks away may get into a whole bunch of regulated arenas and costs. Tapeless backup is clearly the way to go in most situations. As stupid as this question is, I need to basically find credible, reliable sources of published information that basically say its really, really, really dumb to not archive stuff onto some type of medium tape or otherwise. You wont find any really smart such claims as tapes just aren't the answer in many cases. Backup has little to do with tape. Backup criteria include: Offsite. How far is the question? How many independent(in both number and location) offsite backup copies are really needed? Many of the existant backup cycle strategies come from tape technology and are often just bunk for pure backup strategy. How does backup strategy fit with the overall recovery strategy. If the whole 90 story building collapses then do you have a recovery strategy whereby the business can start again in two days in temp facilities in NJ(was the building occupied when it collapsed?)? Maybe the backups in a hard basement can be dug out faster than the business can start functioning again? This Raid 5 server that we have at our company is not a bottomless pit, but the higher ups do not listen to me, only to the "director" who, along with their "consultant" has them believing that the system we currently have in place is relable. If well designed it IS rather reliable. Normally I would just shut my face since my life is a lot easier in terms of backup, hell, set it and forget it is the name of the game. However, I know full well that if we ever got hit with a major disaster the "director" would be off on his vacation while the rest of us poor slobs had to restore data from God knows where. Oh, and if we were to get hit by a brand new, spanking virus because the "director's" kid came in and did so, well, our Network Attached Storage pig would also suffer. Not if well designed. The 'backup server' I've been talking about is a server specifically designed for backups and nothing else and therefore would be highly immue from such external attacks. In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some type of white paper, from some type of credible sources, that SDLT tape backup drives, at least for the purpose of long term archiving Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving" medium. are not "unreliable" , they are only as "unreliable" as the poor work habits of the person who is responsible for them. Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup strategy should look more towards the least common denominator...Murphy....an automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law is that tapes are unrelaible. The proof of that is the incredible cycle strategies that have developed over the years for tape backups. That comes from the fact that too frequently the tape isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons. Oh, and for the record, dear friends of mine swear by SDLT tape drives and the like, but I cannot bring an IT manager from CitiCorp into this discussion because, since he is a friend of mine, his opinion is not "neutral". Tapes are on their way out in many situations(NOT ALL). For all modest configuration servers and workstations I'm telling folks to use removeable SATA HDs in trays with good carrying cases for offsite backup. Firewire or USB2 is also viable. |
#3
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Ron:
Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. If you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie lunchbox. .. . sign me up. Do you have any info on credible removable SATA HDs in trays and good carrying cases for offsite backup. Right now I have a pair of Imega 280gb fire wire drives that I am trying to use for the purpose, but they have their issues. I still like the convenience of tape on account of size, but if you are telling me there is something more reliable than tape and that has the offsite features I am looking for, great, no sweat, I will do it. I fear that the director will, however, then have another excuse because I think the issue here is that he just wants to be right. My fear is protecting our organization from a major disaster and although I am being overly cautious, I really like the idea of taking a full backup home with me on a Monday (after full backup on Sunday) and then the baby backups the other days for the sake of, well, just in case something happens, then its a pain in the butt, but not a total disaster. These removable devices that are not tape based, how are they in terms of ease of portability and size. Well, I know they will not likely be cheap, but, well. Shoot sir. Thank you for your time and wisdom. "Jolly Student" wrote in message et... Okay Folks: Here is one for all of you who thought that people could not get any dumber. Yes, I am cross posting here but the recommendations for such are only in the case where the subject matter concerns a bunch of groups. Your cross posts did not appear. What were the other NGs? I think this qualifies as such. I work for a mid-sized company (600 employees) whose "Technology Director" has openly said that "Tape backups are not reliable". For those of us who have been around for quite awhile that statement is very accurate. Tape backups have never been really relaible because tape technology is inherrently unrelaible. This director had a "consultant" come in to back up his assertion, a consultant who asked to check his email via his "AOL" account (indeed, his email address is something like ). Enough jokes aside - its going to get serious and this group seems to be spreading the rumor that "Tape Backups are Always Unreliable". They are right HOWEVER that does not mean that tapes have no useful purpose in any situation. So we now we have a huge, Raid 5 server that has a pretty decent amount of capacity and are using a company's software to that backups are quick and slick. Cool, my life is so much easier. But thats it. . . we do NOT have an offsite backup, we do NOT have another inhouse SDLT tape backup drive and the entire compliment of our backup resides ONLY on this single Network Attached Raid 5 server. Sure, its housed in a closet somewhere, but what if we had a catastrophic failure, how about a huge fire, or a plane hitting us. The issue of tapes and offsite backups have little to do with one another. Offsite backups are generally mandatory. See, this "consultant" has "clients" in Manhattan who have their offices on the 89th floor, but their Tapeless Backup servers in the basement. Basement is ok but basement of a building three blocks away is better and best of all is in a granite mine on a different continent....well no best is in quantum entangled storage in another galaxyg. Errr, is it me or do basements and the safes that may be contained therein get buried under rubble, or are there some group of IT specialists out there who specialize in nothing but digging out backup servers from the rubble. It's all a cost risk issue. There may be an inexpensive high bandwidth link easily available to the tapeless backup server in the basement but the link gets vastly more expensive as the distance grows. For instance generally such a link within a building has no regulatory requirements except for fire code on the wires themselves. Run that same link to a building three blocks away may get into a whole bunch of regulated arenas and costs. Tapeless backup is clearly the way to go in most situations. As stupid as this question is, I need to basically find credible, reliable sources of published information that basically say its really, really, really dumb to not archive stuff onto some type of medium tape or otherwise. You wont find any really smart such claims as tapes just aren't the answer in many cases. Backup has little to do with tape. Backup criteria include: Offsite. How far is the question? How many independent(in both number and location) offsite backup copies are really needed? Many of the existant backup cycle strategies come from tape technology and are often just bunk for pure backup strategy. How does backup strategy fit with the overall recovery strategy. If the whole 90 story building collapses then do you have a recovery strategy whereby the business can start again in two days in temp facilities in NJ(was the building occupied when it collapsed?)? Maybe the backups in a hard basement can be dug out faster than the business can start functioning again? This Raid 5 server that we have at our company is not a bottomless pit, but the higher ups do not listen to me, only to the "director" who, along with their "consultant" has them believing that the system we currently have in place is relable. If well designed it IS rather reliable. Normally I would just shut my face since my life is a lot easier in terms of backup, hell, set it and forget it is the name of the game. However, I know full well that if we ever got hit with a major disaster the "director" would be off on his vacation while the rest of us poor slobs had to restore data from God knows where. Oh, and if we were to get hit by a brand new, spanking virus because the "director's" kid came in and did so, well, our Network Attached Storage pig would also suffer. Not if well designed. The 'backup server' I've been talking about is a server specifically designed for backups and nothing else and therefore would be highly immue from such external attacks. In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some type of white paper, from some type of credible sources, that SDLT tape backup drives, at least for the purpose of long term archiving Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving" medium. are not "unreliable" , they are only as "unreliable" as the poor work habits of the person who is responsible for them. Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup strategy should look more towards the least common denominator...Murphy....an automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law is that tapes are unrelaible. The proof of that is the incredible cycle strategies that have developed over the years for tape backups. That comes from the fact that too frequently the tape isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons. Oh, and for the record, dear friends of mine swear by SDLT tape drives and the like, but I cannot bring an IT manager from CitiCorp into this discussion because, since he is a friend of mine, his opinion is not "neutral". Tapes are on their way out in many situations(NOT ALL). For all modest configuration servers and workstations I'm telling folks to use removeable SATA HDs in trays with good carrying cases for offsite backup. Firewire or USB2 is also viable. |
#4
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Jolly Student wrote:
Ron: Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. If you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie lunchbox. . . sign me up. I'm not sure if it's the troll in me or if it's just that that image is too good to pass up. But why not build yourself a couple or three little mini-ITX machines in Barbie lunchboxen? Assuming of course that Barbie lunchboxen aren't horribly expensive collectables these days. Just plug it into the network and do your backup and take it home. Do you have any info on credible removable SATA HDs in trays and good carrying cases for offsite backup. All SATA drives are inherently removable--hot-plug is part of the spec. All you need is something with the right backplane and mounting rails, similar to SCA hot-swap enclosures for SCSI. Froogle CSE-M35T1B for one example from a reputable manufacturer--Supermicro is a well established manufacturer of server and workstation motherboards and components. Or you can just run the power and signal cables out a hole in the front of the case and plug the drive into them. As for good carrying cases, go to the Pelican site http://www.pelican.com/ and find one the size you want. Right now I have a pair of Imega 280gb fire wire drives that I am trying to use for the purpose, but they have their issues. I still like the convenience of tape on account of size, but if you are telling me there is something more reliable than tape and that has the offsite features I am looking for, great, no sweat, I will do it. DLT cartridges are only slightly smaller than 3-1/2" disks and somewhat larger than 2-1/2". LTOs are larger. I don't see the physical dimensions of the media as an issue unless you're willing to go to helical scan. I fear that the director will, however, then have another excuse because I think the issue here is that he just wants to be right. My fear is protecting our organization from a major disaster and although I am being overly cautious, I really like the idea of taking a full backup home with me on a Monday (after full backup on Sunday) and then the baby backups the other days for the sake of, well, just in case something happens, then its a pain in the butt, but not a total disaster. These removable devices that are not tape based, how are they in terms of ease of portability and size. Well, I know they will not likely be cheap, but, well. Shoot sir. Thank you for your time and wisdom. "Jolly Student" wrote in message et... Okay Folks: Here is one for all of you who thought that people could not get any dumber. Yes, I am cross posting here but the recommendations for such are only in the case where the subject matter concerns a bunch of groups. Your cross posts did not appear. What were the other NGs? I think this qualifies as such. I work for a mid-sized company (600 employees) whose "Technology Director" has openly said that "Tape backups are not reliable". For those of us who have been around for quite awhile that statement is very accurate. Tape backups have never been really relaible because tape technology is inherrently unrelaible. This director had a "consultant" come in to back up his assertion, a consultant who asked to check his email via his "AOL" account (indeed, his email address is something like ). Enough jokes aside - its going to get serious and this group seems to be spreading the rumor that "Tape Backups are Always Unreliable". They are right HOWEVER that does not mean that tapes have no useful purpose in any situation. So we now we have a huge, Raid 5 server that has a pretty decent amount of capacity and are using a company's software to that backups are quick and slick. Cool, my life is so much easier. But thats it. . . we do NOT have an offsite backup, we do NOT have another inhouse SDLT tape backup drive and the entire compliment of our backup resides ONLY on this single Network Attached Raid 5 server. Sure, its housed in a closet somewhere, but what if we had a catastrophic failure, how about a huge fire, or a plane hitting us. The issue of tapes and offsite backups have little to do with one another. Offsite backups are generally mandatory. See, this "consultant" has "clients" in Manhattan who have their offices on the 89th floor, but their Tapeless Backup servers in the basement. Basement is ok but basement of a building three blocks away is better and best of all is in a granite mine on a different continent....well no best is in quantum entangled storage in another galaxyg. Errr, is it me or do basements and the safes that may be contained therein get buried under rubble, or are there some group of IT specialists out there who specialize in nothing but digging out backup servers from the rubble. It's all a cost risk issue. There may be an inexpensive high bandwidth link easily available to the tapeless backup server in the basement but the link gets vastly more expensive as the distance grows. For instance generally such a link within a building has no regulatory requirements except for fire code on the wires themselves. Run that same link to a building three blocks away may get into a whole bunch of regulated arenas and costs. Tapeless backup is clearly the way to go in most situations. As stupid as this question is, I need to basically find credible, reliable sources of published information that basically say its really, really, really dumb to not archive stuff onto some type of medium tape or otherwise. You wont find any really smart such claims as tapes just aren't the answer in many cases. Backup has little to do with tape. Backup criteria include: Offsite. How far is the question? How many independent(in both number and location) offsite backup copies are really needed? Many of the existant backup cycle strategies come from tape technology and are often just bunk for pure backup strategy. How does backup strategy fit with the overall recovery strategy. If the whole 90 story building collapses then do you have a recovery strategy whereby the business can start again in two days in temp facilities in NJ(was the building occupied when it collapsed?)? Maybe the backups in a hard basement can be dug out faster than the business can start functioning again? This Raid 5 server that we have at our company is not a bottomless pit, but the higher ups do not listen to me, only to the "director" who, along with their "consultant" has them believing that the system we currently have in place is relable. If well designed it IS rather reliable. Normally I would just shut my face since my life is a lot easier in terms of backup, hell, set it and forget it is the name of the game. However, I know full well that if we ever got hit with a major disaster the "director" would be off on his vacation while the rest of us poor slobs had to restore data from God knows where. Oh, and if we were to get hit by a brand new, spanking virus because the "director's" kid came in and did so, well, our Network Attached Storage pig would also suffer. Not if well designed. The 'backup server' I've been talking about is a server specifically designed for backups and nothing else and therefore would be highly immue from such external attacks. In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some type of white paper, from some type of credible sources, that SDLT tape backup drives, at least for the purpose of long term archiving Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving" medium. are not "unreliable" , they are only as "unreliable" as the poor work habits of the person who is responsible for them. Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup strategy should look more towards the least common denominator...Murphy....an automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law is that tapes are unrelaible. The proof of that is the incredible cycle strategies that have developed over the years for tape backups. That comes from the fact that too frequently the tape isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons. Oh, and for the record, dear friends of mine swear by SDLT tape drives and the like, but I cannot bring an IT manager from CitiCorp into this discussion because, since he is a friend of mine, his opinion is not "neutral". Tapes are on their way out in many situations(NOT ALL). For all modest configuration servers and workstations I'm telling folks to use removeable SATA HDs in trays with good carrying cases for offsite backup. Firewire or USB2 is also viable. -- --John Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
#5
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"Jolly Student" wrote in message et... Ron: Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. The basement of a large building is significantly close to offsite save Osama and gaint meteroid impact. Both those have significant requirements in overall recovery strategy including the possibility that recovery may NOT be feasible nor attempted. If you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie lunchbox. . . sign me up. You have to define 'offsite'. Do you have any info on credible removable SATA HDs in trays and good carrying cases for offsite backup. Yep, I've implemented several such systems. KingWin KF-83 rack+tray+3 fans ~$30 with built in shock mounting. There's several padded carrying cases on the market. Right now I have a pair of Imega 280gb fire wire drives that I am trying to use for the purpose, but they have their issues. I still like the convenience of tape on account of size, but if you are telling me there is something more reliable than tape and that has the offsite features I am looking for, great, no sweat, I will do it. I fear that the director will, however, then have another excuse because I think the issue here is that he just wants to be right. My fear is protecting our organization from a major disaster and although I am being overly cautious, I really like the idea of taking a full backup home with me on a Monday (after full backup on Sunday) and then the baby backups the other days for the sake of, well, just in case something happens, then its a pain in the butt, but not a total disaster. You are fretting about the basement by some definition not being offsite but have you covered and considered all the other ways that you could lose it. In the case of your business if the offices and basement are both totally destroyed then what are the odds/chances that business recovery will even be attempted? These removable devices that are not tape based, how are they in terms of ease of portability and size. Quite reasonable and HDs are fast and tape drives are SLOW. Well, I know they will not likely be cheap, but, well. Shoot sir. 250GB SATA HD drive is about $200. "Jolly Student" wrote in message et... Okay Folks: Here is one for all of you who thought that people could not get any dumber. Yes, I am cross posting here but the recommendations for such are only in the case where the subject matter concerns a bunch of groups. Your cross posts did not appear. What were the other NGs? I think this qualifies as such. I work for a mid-sized company (600 employees) whose "Technology Director" has openly said that "Tape backups are not reliable". For those of us who have been around for quite awhile that statement is very accurate. Tape backups have never been really relaible because tape technology is inherrently unrelaible. This director had a "consultant" come in to back up his assertion, a consultant who asked to check his email via his "AOL" account (indeed, his email address is something like ). Enough jokes aside - its going to get serious and this group seems to be spreading the rumor that "Tape Backups are Always Unreliable". They are right HOWEVER that does not mean that tapes have no useful purpose in any situation. So we now we have a huge, Raid 5 server that has a pretty decent amount of capacity and are using a company's software to that backups are quick and slick. Cool, my life is so much easier. But thats it. . . we do NOT have an offsite backup, we do NOT have another inhouse SDLT tape backup drive and the entire compliment of our backup resides ONLY on this single Network Attached Raid 5 server. Sure, its housed in a closet somewhere, but what if we had a catastrophic failure, how about a huge fire, or a plane hitting us. The issue of tapes and offsite backups have little to do with one another. Offsite backups are generally mandatory. See, this "consultant" has "clients" in Manhattan who have their offices on the 89th floor, but their Tapeless Backup servers in the basement. Basement is ok but basement of a building three blocks away is better and best of all is in a granite mine on a different continent....well no best is in quantum entangled storage in another galaxyg. Errr, is it me or do basements and the safes that may be contained therein get buried under rubble, or are there some group of IT specialists out there who specialize in nothing but digging out backup servers from the rubble. It's all a cost risk issue. There may be an inexpensive high bandwidth link easily available to the tapeless backup server in the basement but the link gets vastly more expensive as the distance grows. For instance generally such a link within a building has no regulatory requirements except for fire code on the wires themselves. Run that same link to a building three blocks away may get into a whole bunch of regulated arenas and costs. Tapeless backup is clearly the way to go in most situations. As stupid as this question is, I need to basically find credible, reliable sources of published information that basically say its really, really, really dumb to not archive stuff onto some type of medium tape or otherwise. You wont find any really smart such claims as tapes just aren't the answer in many cases. Backup has little to do with tape. Backup criteria include: Offsite. How far is the question? How many independent(in both number and location) offsite backup copies are really needed? Many of the existant backup cycle strategies come from tape technology and are often just bunk for pure backup strategy. How does backup strategy fit with the overall recovery strategy. If the whole 90 story building collapses then do you have a recovery strategy whereby the business can start again in two days in temp facilities in NJ(was the building occupied when it collapsed?)? Maybe the backups in a hard basement can be dug out faster than the business can start functioning again? This Raid 5 server that we have at our company is not a bottomless pit, but the higher ups do not listen to me, only to the "director" who, along with their "consultant" has them believing that the system we currently have in place is relable. If well designed it IS rather reliable. Normally I would just shut my face since my life is a lot easier in terms of backup, hell, set it and forget it is the name of the game. However, I know full well that if we ever got hit with a major disaster the "director" would be off on his vacation while the rest of us poor slobs had to restore data from God knows where. Oh, and if we were to get hit by a brand new, spanking virus because the "director's" kid came in and did so, well, our Network Attached Storage pig would also suffer. Not if well designed. The 'backup server' I've been talking about is a server specifically designed for backups and nothing else and therefore would be highly immue from such external attacks. In short, I need some type of recommendation, in writing, in some type of white paper, from some type of credible sources, that SDLT tape backup drives, at least for the purpose of long term archiving Tapes have NEVER been considered a viable "long term archiving" medium. are not "unreliable" , they are only as "unreliable" as the poor work habits of the person who is responsible for them. Reliability is always the sum of all such factors and any backup strategy should look more towards the least common denominator...Murphy....an automatic corrollary to Murphiy's law is that tapes are unrelaible. The proof of that is the incredible cycle strategies that have developed over the years for tape backups. That comes from the fact that too frequently the tape isn't usable for any one of a number of reasons. Oh, and for the record, dear friends of mine swear by SDLT tape drives and the like, but I cannot bring an IT manager from CitiCorp into this discussion because, since he is a friend of mine, his opinion is not "neutral". Tapes are on their way out in many situations(NOT ALL). For all modest configuration servers and workstations I'm telling folks to use removeable SATA HDs in trays with good carrying cases for offsite backup. Firewire or USB2 is also viable. |
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On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 06:24:07 GMT, "Jolly Student"
wrote: Ron: Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. If you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie lunchbox. . . sign me up. Jolly Student: It seems you are complaining about two different issues at the company you work with. 1) The necessity to make backups 2) The necessity to bring backups off site. 1) Why you have to make backups is easy to defend. Viruses, a fire in the serverroom etc, software failures. Raid controllers only protect you against hardware failures, which is only about 20% of all outage causes. Human error and software failures cause all other outage, which you have to protect against with backups. Don't tell me that nothing happened in your company that you can't use as an example of what might happen to your server. But as Ron also said, that doesn't necessarily mean you need tapes. Just any kind of backup that is suitable in the environment. 2) The case for bringing tapes off site is more difficult to defend. I would consider taking the backups home with you a serious security issue. Those tapes contain important data that someone might want to steal. I assume that your office is better protected against burglars than your home? So you need to hire a company to collect the tapes, which can put it in a safe place (underground bunker or something like that) The question then is: How costly is that solution vs What does losing all data cost your company and how likely is that going to happen? For a company in a 2 story building, a strong safe which is fireproof might be a perfectly valid on-site location for your backups. (I know of a dutch university that had the building with their serverroom burn down to the ground, but after two days they could collect access the safe in the ruins of the building and do a restore on new servers). The chance of an airplane hitting that building/safe is so small that they don't need off-site backups. On the 98th floor the situation is of course different. But you haven't mentioned the situation of your own server. Directors only care about money. So what you need to do is show him that using off-site backups is the cheaper solution in the long run. If you cannot do that, then your boss is right. If you can do that he can defend the expense to his boss and will implement an off-site stragey. Unfortunately most IT people are very bad at judging/calculating cost effectiveness of software and hardware. Marc |
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Marc de Vries wrote:
On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 06:24:07 GMT, "Jolly Student" wrote: Ron: Thank you for your words of wisdom. I personally like the fast no tape system but the bug up my butt is that we dont have anything off site. If you told me to get this or that and that its more reliable than tape, but that I can TAKE IT OFF SITE, I dont care if it looks like a barbie lunchbox. . . sign me up. Jolly Student: It seems you are complaining about two different issues at the company you work with. 1) The necessity to make backups 2) The necessity to bring backups off site. 1) Why you have to make backups is easy to defend. Viruses, a fire in the serverroom etc, software failures. Raid controllers only protect you against hardware failures, which is only about 20% of all outage causes. Human error and software failures cause all other outage, which you have to protect against with backups. Don't tell me that nothing happened in your company that you can't use as an example of what might happen to your server. But as Ron also said, that doesn't necessarily mean you need tapes. Just any kind of backup that is suitable in the environment. 2) The case for bringing tapes off site is more difficult to defend. I would consider taking the backups home with you a serious security issue. Those tapes contain important data that someone might want to steal. I assume that your office is better protected against burglars than your home? First, the seriousness of the risk of theft of the backup depends on the circumstances. One company I worked for stored a huge (for the time) volume of data, all of which had a cash value--if we sold all of it at the going rate there was easily a million dollars worth of data on that little tape--but _only_ if obtained from our company with appropriate signatures and certifications, and with a tiny market for each particular item--there might be three or four people in the entire world that had any use for it. Further, everybody who had a use for any of it already had a copy--anybody who had one was required by law to provide a copy to all interested parties, but the only legally valid copies were the ones that we provided. Thus the risk entailed by theft of the backup was nonexistent. Second, the assumption that the office is "better protected against burglars than your home" may be true for a defense contractor, but most small businesses and many medium sized ones have no better security than many residences. Certainly fewer people have the alarm code for my residence than have the code for any business where I have been employed. Third, if that's a real concern then encrypt the backup. So you need to hire a company to collect the tapes, which can put it in a safe place (underground bunker or something like that) Or not, depending on the circumstances. The question then is: How costly is that solution vs What does losing all data cost your company and how likely is that going to happen? The first question is "do you really need to store your daily backup in someone's underground bunker?" For a company in a 2 story building, a strong safe which is fireproof might be a perfectly valid on-site location for your backups. (I know of a dutch university that had the building with their serverroom burn down to the ground, but after two days they could collect access the safe in the ruins of the building and do a restore on new servers). They were fortunate. One must weigh the cost of that safe against the other costs. A safe that can keep data storage media cool enough to remain useful after a fire that destroys the building is not _cheap_. And given that they were a university one would assume that they had other buildings with safes in them, leaving one to wonder why they didn't store the backup in a different building. The chance of an airplane hitting that building/safe is so small that they don't need off-site backups. The chance of an airplane hitting the World Trade Center was vanishingly small too. But that was just an example of a disaster of major proportions. Fire, flood, earthquake, all kinds of major disasters can happen, some natural, some man-made. On the 98th floor the situation is of course different. But you haven't mentioned the situation of your own server. Directors only care about money. I don't think he was talking about a Director in the sense of "Board Of". So what you need to do is show him that using off-site backups is the cheaper solution in the long run. Cheaper than what? Most businesses never file a claim with their insurance company--for them going uninsured is the cheaper solution in the long run. The trouble is that you can't tell in advance if you are going to be one of the few who will actually have occasion to collect. Thus most businesses are insured against a variety of low-probability eventualities. Backup is the same way--for most businesses it ends up pure cost, never saves the company a cent. If you want to be really hardcore about it you could do some statistical analysis that showed the probability of particular scenarios, the cost of those scenarios, and the cost of backup strategies that prevent those scenarios. Getting the data on which to base the analysis could be difficult though. If you cannot do that, then your boss is right. If you can do that he can defend the expense to his boss and will implement an off-site stragey. Unfortunately most IT people are very bad at judging/calculating cost effectiveness of software and hardware. Marc -- --John Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
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"sTALe Watch" wrote:
Jolly Student, you and I are cut from the same mold. Both top posters, too lazy to trim. |
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Marc de Vries writes:
2) The case for bringing tapes off site is more difficult to defend. I would consider taking the backups home with you a serious security issue. Those tapes contain important data that someone might want to steal. I assume that your office is better protected against burglars than your home? That can be handled rather simply by encrypting the tapes. If someone steals them without the decryption key, the data is inaccessible. The parable/marketing blurb at http://www.taobackup.com is well worth reading for anyone in the OP or his PHB's situation. |
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Oh cut the ****. . . give the guy a break. If his boss is too stupid to
realize that taking something as simple as an SDLT tape home every night for a grand total cost of ten grand, give the guy a break - he is just trying to to get some advice and trying to save a poor bunch of slobs the hours. Top posters and too lazy to trim. Maybe to busy to trim and hope that others dont pick on everything. . . maybe he worries more about important things, like disaster recovery. "chrisv" wrote in message ... "sTALe Watch" wrote: Jolly Student, you and I are cut from the same mold. Both top posters, too lazy to trim. |
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