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June 20, 2003
Life insurance is one of those things that some people put off getting until they feel that their life is winding down and they may actually have a need to use it. Data disaster recovery is strikingly similar in this respect. In the past, medical records at local dentists' and doctors' offices were rarely copied and sent to a safe, off-site location. This was such a problem that federal guidelines were created in 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which require anyone who handles personal medical records to adhere to certain disaster and security rules. It isn't likely that the federal government will ask if your organization performs a daily data backup. However, if you own a video store and lose the rental records or can't find the yearly financials as tax day gets closer, it could be too late to start backing up your data. Take some time to examine offline storage options to help prevent this kind of disaster from happening to you. Tape storage systems When people think of mainframe computers, the first thing that comes to mind is reel-to-reel tape, but those days are gone. Currently, there are technologies with a hundred times the storage capacity of the older reel-to-reel systems. Two prolific technologies on the market today are Quantum Corporation's Super DLTtape (SDLT) and Sony's Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT). Companies such as Compaq, Dell, and IBM use SDLT drive units in their tape systems. The capacity for a SDLT is 160 GB native and 320 GB compressed, with a transfer rate of 30 MBps. AIT has a native storage of 100 GB and 200 GB compressed, plus it speeds along at 30 MBps. In addition, AIT offers Sony's Memory Stick technology that's built into the cartridge, so cataloging a tape is reduced to seconds. SDLT and AIT tapes are similarly priced, at $80 and $70 U.S. currency, respectively. Drives are also close in price, ranging from $900 to $1200 per drive. Enterprise tape software Since most server volumes consist of only a few gigabytes, you shouldn't buy a tape drive for each of your systems. Backing up to a 200-GB tape is actually wasting your resources. There are two competing vendors in the enterprise tape market: VERITAS Software and LETAGO Systems, Inc. The software packages offered from these vendors provide a great way to share your tape system with your servers, as well as manage your tape libraries. In the past, I've used VERITAS Backup Exec and VERITAS NetBackup DataCenter with great results. Which one you use will depend on how much you want to spend, as Backup Exec is $500 and NetBackup starts at $10,000. The data backup process Having an adequate backup system isn't just about owning a tape drive and some software--it's also a process for keeping track of when and how you perform the backups. Make one person responsible for guaranteeing that the backup is completed on a daily basis and that the tape is sent off-site. This position is more important than any other in your IT organization, and the assignment shouldn't be overlooked as a menial task. It's only on the day that you need to recover two-year-old data from an employee over a lawsuit or recover all of your executives' e-mail from a crashed server that backups will become the most important thing you have in your organization. Start your disaster data recovery plan before that day arrives. Dave Mays is an independent consultant with over 10 years in the technology industry. He was a research pioneer at one of the first national Internet providers.
-------------------------------------------------- To access previous newsletters, go to http://www.veemost.com/newsletters.htm --------------------------------------------------- WHEN YOUR NETWORK IS TOAST, CALL VEEMOST We have risen to the task many times. We can help you get your network back to normal. Save yourself some time, we are just a phone call away. >Contact VeeMost at 330-928-1100 or 1-877-VeeMost
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