Digital tape storage has evolved to become an extremely stable, secure and highly reliable state-of-the-art data storage technology. It‘s a great friend to storage managers and is a staple in today’s data protection policies. In this BlogBytes we will examine a fundamental backup protection strategy, review how an award winning movie studio uses LTO technology as part of this strategy and start with an overview of a recent tape application and roadmap webinar presented by INSIC industry executives.
Executives Discuss Roadmap at INSIC Webinar
In a recent technology webinar, INSIC Chairman, Turguy Goker, Director of Tape Development at Quantum, and Mark Hill, INSIC Board and Program Director of Tape Development at IBM, discussed the storage marketplace, technology roadmap, and how LTO tape technology is positioned to address the top concerns faced by storage managers regarding energy use, cost control, data security and growing volumes of data. See a replay of the webinar here and the webinar presentation slides here.
In addition, this whitepaper reveals insightful comparisons from the INSIC technology research in terms of capacity and performance that clearly demonstrates why LTO tape has the ability to support the established roadmap based on aerial density and data reliability.
3-2-1 Storage Strategy
The 3-2-1 backup strategy may be a familiar process for some, but it is becoming more widespread due to the prevalence of cyber-attacks and the need to protect digital assets. Storage managers are more keenly aware than ever before
of the threats that cyber-attackers and malware pose. Therefore, this backup strategy has seen a renewed focus. As highlighted in a recent SearchDataBackup column, “It’s a tale as old as time: Three copies of your data, on at least two different media, with one copy off site…and tape backup systems can play a big part in it… [This practice] provides a much more comprehensive backup strategy in the face of natural disasters, cyberattacks and any other threat to your primary site.”
The SearchDataBackup article underscores, “The two most common forms of off-site backup are the cloud and tape. Tape backup systems go a step further in data protection security, though, as they are also inherently offline. That’s significant, given that many of today’s threats come over a network.” Tape’s offline capability provides an air gap between the tape data and other systems which mean hackers can’t get access to the offline tape data, helping to protect and preserve your firm’s digital assets. Remember to make sure your cloud provider stores a copy of your data on tape. Or you can do what many others do and store it on tape at your location, too!
Read on to learn how an award-winning movie studio employs LTO tape systems as part of their backup and archive process.
LTO Tape Saves Studio Assets
Aardman is an independent and multi-award-winning studio. It produces feature films, series, advertising, interactive entertainment and innovative attractions both domestically and internationally. Aardman needed to control costs and stay within planned budget while protecting their video assets from any form of accidental or intentional destruction and ransomware attacks. They implemented LTO tape drives and automated libraries. Their staff was able to store each step of the workflow securely onto LTO tape and easily create a second tape copy of video content to store offsite for disaster protection. That’s the perfect use case of the 3-2-1 strategy. See more information about the Aardman case study here.
When it comes to backup and archive strategies, tape technology continues to be the great friend that helps preserve data long term, combats cyber-threats and addresses cost control objectives. Learn more: watch this LTO introductory video.
You can meet the LTO program team at the Gartner IT Symposium Xpo, October 20-24 in Orlando, Florida to see LTO technology in action.