Tape is Dead
09/02/2005 07:18 AM
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Tape is Dead
August 30, 2005
By Drew Robb
This article is the first of a two-part
series. In it, we present the case against
tape. Analysts and vendors pitch in about
why tape is dead. In the second part of
the series, "Long Live Tape," we take the
side of tape proponents who believe tape
still has plenty of mileage. Let the wars
begin!
Tape backup has certainly gotten a bad
rap recently. Tales of UPS truck glitches,
tapes vanishing and customer data
compromised have littered the headlines
of late.
"With so many incidents of identity loss
via tape, some are wondering if they
should get off tape," says Charles Curtis,
senior storage engineer, LanData
Systems Inc. in Houston, TX.
Indeed, a survey by Enterprise Strategy
Group (ESG) reveals that 18 percent of
respondents had already replaced some
or all their tapes. Another 58 percent said
they were considering the possibility.
Steve Duplessie, an analyst with ESG,
tells of a deal involving 2.6 TB for
Engenio disks. The oil company
concerned found it cheaper to buy new
disks for data storage than it would be to
restore data from tape in the event of a
disaster i.e. the amount it would cost the
company in delay due to the recovery
process made the amount charged for
new disk seem like chickenfeed.
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"We are observing a definite trend of
hundreds of terabytes of tape library
being replaced with disk," says Duplessie.
Whitepaper: Symantec LiveState™ Recovery
"These companies were permanently
This disk-based backup system recovery solution quickly
replacing, not augmenting tape."
http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/storage/features/article.php/3530976
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Tape is Dead
09/02/2005 07:18 AM
replacing, not augmenting tape."
A glut of disk backup vendors has
entered the fray and is aggressive about
dumping tape. Data Domain of Palo Alto,
CA, hands out bumper stickers saying,
"Tape Sucks, Move On."
"Our DD4400 Enterprise Series shrink
backups by an average of 95 percent
over tape," says director of marketing
Bart Bartlett.
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FilesX Inc. is another tape critic. It cites
high failure rates, poor recovery times,
and copying dozens of copies of the same
document onto backup.
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restoration, or recover individual files/folders in minutes
without interrupting user productivity.
Register Now to Download.
Related Articles
•Holographic Backup: The Future of Enterprise Data Storage
•CitiFinancial Drops Backup Tapes After Data Loss
•The Perils of Long- Term Storage
Storage Products
•
•
•
•
•
•
ZANTAZ Enterprise Archive Solution (EAS) (ZANTAZ, Inc)
Fortiva Suite (Fortiva Inc)
AfterMail (AfterMail Ltd)
CDB Studio (dbBalance Ltd)
NA- 1400 (Newisys, Inc)
Assureon (Nexsan Technologies)
"Tape is dead and disk is king," says
Aviram Cohen, Vice President of product management, FilesX Inc. "30 percent of backups, and
probably a lot more, are not usable due to faulty tapes, faulty hardware or human error."
Rory Bolt CTO of Avamar Technologies Inc. thinks that part of the problem is that tape is a dated
technology, one that has remained fundamentally unchanged for forty years. He believes tape is
gradually being pushed down to a purely archival role. His company touts a disk-based approach to
secondary storage.
"I heard a tale about a secretary at a branch office who put in a cleaning tape by mistake so the
entire backup went undone," says Bolt. "It’s very hard to monitor remote offices or to automate their
backups centrally using tape."
His views are shared by Mark Phillippi, product manager at Unitrends. His company markets data
protection units as a tapeless backup solution.
"Tape is rapidly being phased out, especially at the SMB level, in favor of a disk-to-disk strategy," he
says. "Tape may still be used for archiving but some firms are even shying away from that type of
project."
W.Curtis Preston, vice president of data protection services at GlassHouse Technologies, Inc. concurs
that there has been a fundamental shift in the marketplace.
"Erase the idea that backup to tape is the only concept as backup now means any medium," he says.
"Tape certainly sucks for remote sites, though it is good for the data center. I’d advise anyone to get
rid of tape from remote sites."
Meanwhile, Wendy Petty, VP of Sales at FalconStor Software Inc. suggests a virtual tape library (VTL)
as a tape alternative.
"The best way might be to backup to a virtual tape library (VTL) and have Continuous Data
Protection (CDP) for instant recovery," says Petty. "VTL is far more flexible than tape."
Take the case of a company with three data centers that has to backup 1700 servers for compliance,
yet may need some of the more recent data for production purposes. Petty tells how they cache to
disk and use VTL in order to cut down the backup window. This has brought them huge cost
reductions, she says.
Another staunch VTL and anti-tape proponent is SEPATON – the company name is NO TAPES spelled
backwards.
"Disk lets you stream data to lower cost disks and gives you faster recovery," says Miklos Sandorfi,
CTO of SEPATON of Malboro, MA. "VTL can run at up to 4.5 TB per hour."
On a more cautionary note, however, Jay Seifert, senior product manager of ILM at StorageTek
believes that a disk only strategy is not sustainable. Due to compliance necessities, most companies
have to save everything and be able to access it. The only way you can do that, he believes, is with
a disk-tape combo.
"One size does not fit all and recovery objectives dictate what media and combinations will meet the
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Tape is Dead
09/02/2005 07:18 AM
needs of the business," he advises. "Disk is expensive to maintain and needs to become a lot easier
to use."
To hear more of the alternative view as expressed by tape vendors, analysts and independent
experts, stay tuned for the second part of the series, "Long Live Tape."
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