Automated Tape as a Tool for Enterprise Backup

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Tape is the ideal medium for enterprise backup and recovery because it's fast, reliable, and affordable. Until recently, tape backup didn't offer the benefit of data separation from the enterprise server. SCSI distances are limited to 100 feet or less. Thus, tapes still had to be manually carried offsite. New channel extension technology makes direct offsite recording possible. Deemed remote electronic vaulting, data extension capabilities allow data transfer across unlimited distances.

Recent developments in automated tape libraries supporting virtually all computing platforms solve the automation problem. Automated libraries of all sizes abound, from the desktop version carrying a dozen or so tapes, to huge systems holding thousands of tape cartridges. Automation, combined with remote connections for your tape system, offers the most promising solution. No matter where you locate a robotic tape library, it can be a valuable asset in its role as the backup/recovery repository. Recovery can be accomplished remotely from an alternate site, enabling the rapid routing of data to remote users.

The robot-controlled library and its partner—high-capacity/high-speed tape—can be located away from the prime processing sites and can be logically connected over great distances. The price of these lines is no longer a deterrent to good data protection and storage management practices.

StorageTek (STK), for example, makes robotic libraries that vary from a model that holds 18 tapes and one or more tape drives to the gigantic Powderhorn, which holds up to 6000 tapes and as many as 80 tape drives. These devices are now in their fifth generation and have populated most largescale mainframe shops since the early eighties.

Tape transports from StorageTek, IBM, and DLT can be attached to these robotic libraries, or even a mix of assorted transports. This allows the appropriate high-capacity tape drive to be matched with the robot depending on the specifications. By separating which library is needed and which tape transport is considered necessary, individual requirements can be met efficiently and economically with future growth allowed for. All libraries offer a cartridge access port that allows for manual discards and entries of tapes and a user interface for exercising and controlling the unit.

Tape transports are also becoming increasingly more affordable as vendors compete in the areas of cost, performance, capacity, and scalability.