Media wars

11.05.2006
The need to back up and store enterprise data is undeniable. How to do it is the question. Batch processing or continuous data protection? Point in time imaging? RAID disk arrays? Tape? Disk? A combination of the two? Optical media? Memory sticks? A length of fencing wire and some sticky tape?

Even Garry Barker, chairman of the board of directors of the Australia/New Zealand branch of the Storage Networking Industry Association, admits that "there does seem to be a battle between tape and disk and tape plus disk".

Despite the enthusiasm with which suppliers espouse the advantages of their various and competing technologies, Barker says there is no generic answer to the question of disk or tape. "The industry hasn't come up with an answer . . . a battle is raging."

Tape has been the traditional medium of choice. It has been around for ages and has a good record for longevity and reliability if handled correctly and managed properly. It has its downsides, most notably the gap between starting a backup and when it is completed, leaving what is referred to as a "backup window" in your data. This is why most tape backups are done overnight or, even better, over the weekend. But it still remains one of the key issues picked on by suppliers of alternative media.

The other issue in enterprise backups is the sheer size to be managed.

Not only do current regulations insist that more data than ever is stored, but organizations themselves are increasingly realizing the potential value of information, even if they do not know exactly what it might be. Better to store it, then, just in case. Changes in technology - such as the improving resolution of visual images - mean files are increasing in size, requiring more storage space. In addition there is the general increase in data being generated by you, them and everyone else. Finally, there is just the shear bloody-mindedness of people who wish to store everything for a rainy day, as if data storage was the jammed backyard shed of an organization.