Users Ponder Tape Independence

Although tape has held its own for long-term data retention, advances in disk backup technology have users wondering if they need tape, even for archiving.

Temporary staffing firm Labor Ready has been using Data Domain DDR 460 appliance for about a year in its Tacoma, Wash., headquarters, and plans to install another DDR460 in its Reno, Nev., office to replicate data between the two.

The original plan was to back up two weeks of mission critical data onsite for quick restoration, but director of IT infrastructure Jeffrey Zuniga says the company may drop tape completely after installing a second appliance for replication.

"We're considering it," Zuniga says. "We'll see how well it goes when we put in a secondary box in Reno. Potentially, we could move off tape completely then."

If Labor Ready dumped tape completely, it would be in the minority among large companies, but it would hardly be alone.Jeff Machols, systems integration manager of retirement and health benefits firm CitiStreet, is more definitive. He says Sepaton virtual tape libraries (VTL) and a UDO jukebox from Heweltt-Packard will make tape obsolete in his shop.

"We're in the final phase of tape elimination," Machols says. "I'm guessing by the end of this year we'll be completely off tape. Now we use tape for extra capacity. If we need six weeks of retention, maybe we can get four weeks on Sepaton and two weeks on tape. Replication and compression helps take that final step so we can get it all on VTL."

Despite using different disk-backup products, Labor Ready and CitiStreet have followed similar paths to improve their backups. Data Domain began as a compression vendor that added VTL capability, and Sepaton is a VTL vendor that is planning compression. (See Data Domain Adds VTL Option, Data Compression: The Squeeze Is On!, and Sepaton's Got Virtual Tape.) Each added support for remote replication along the way for disaster recovery. (See Data Domain Adds Replication and Sepaton Adds Remote Rep.)

To manage all the data it maintains on approximately 600,000 temporary workers it hires annually and its 900 branches worldwide, Labor Ready uses a Hewlett-Packard EVA500 SAN. The employment company was using an HP tape library for all its backups, but Zuniga says tape wasn't fast or reliable enough, especially to restore data after the firm synchronizes its database as part of frequent records updates.

"A couple of times a week we need to do quick restorations to get things back," Zuniga says. "When it takes six hours to restore data and you're almost finished, and have to start over because you reach capacity limits, it gets to be a problem. That led us to look at backup to disk."He says Labor Ready keeps the records it most frequently needs on the Data Domain appliance, with tape used for archiving.

"We back up data directly to the DDR now," he says. "Most restorations occur within a two-week time period. We synchronize the database, and restore the user file. We wanted to be able to back up enough of our critical data to disk and store at least two weeks' worth of data."

Data Domain was among the first storage vendors to use data de-duplication to compress data, requiring less capacity and increasing transfer times. (See Vonage Adds Overseas Calls.) Zuniga says that was the main reason he picked Data Domain over the other backup appliances and NAS products he looked at. He says he averages about 12:1 compression rates with Data Domain.

"Compression lets us store all the data we needed on the appliance. That makes the price point more attractive because our SAN is available for production data," he says.

CitiStreet first installed Sepaton two years ago to shorten its backup window. When Sepaton added replication to its VTLs in January, Citistreet could copy data between its Quincy, Mass., and Jacksonville, Fla., data centers by installing a Sepaton S2100-ES2 unit in each spot."Either of our data centers can run the business," Machols says. "If we're doing maintenance in Jacksonville we can fail over to Quincy, and if we're doing maintenance in Quincy we can fail to Jacksonville."

Machols is still waiting on de-duplication. Sepaton is due to start beta testing its DeltaStor data de-duplication software next week, with general availability expected by the end of the year. (See Sepaton Readies De-Dupe.) That will allow him to store more data on disk.

"De-duplication's the next step," he says. "All VTLs will need to do that eventually. You'll see the required footprint go down [from de-duplication]. That benefits capacity and speeds."

CitiStreet is an HP shop, running EVA 800 SANs, and currently archives to Quantum tape and an HP UDO library. Machols says he'll stick with UDO because it's more reliable and costs less than tape. As far as tape being necessary for offsite vaulting, he isn't buying.

"That's a huge risk," Machols says. "You're sending your data offsite, and putting it in the hands of somebody else. That's bad, especially restricted information or compliance information. Whether it's a real risk or perceived risk, it doesn't matter. In some cases when tapes got lost nobody got their hands on the data, but that's not in the news stories. It's always, 'You lost that data.' "Dave Raffo, News Editor, Byte and Switch