The eMag Link Monthly Articles
May Edition
View previous articles
Ensure the Integrity and Availability of Your Data (Part Two)
Ensure the Integrity and Availability of Your Data (Part Two)
This is the second part in a series of 4 editorials that aims to look at the need to ensure the integrity and availability of data stored on tape within YOUR organization. Each part will take an in-depth look at the products, processes and services that are available to you to help ensure data integrity, reduce risk, improve performance and ultimately lower your cost of ownership.
While it is generally understood that investing in a hi-tech storage infrastructure is half of the battle; the way in which the information is then managed throughout its lifecycle remains the crucial factor if it is to ever be retrieved. The implementation of corporate governance and compliance policies and procedures requires organizations to look at the entire process:
- From the quality of the media in the first instance to the conditions in which it is stored
- From the policy to which it is backed up and then archived to the measures that are in place to ensure business continuity and third party neutrality should the data need to be extracted and presented in court.
This series of editorials will be broken down into the following sections:
- The legislative environment: internal and regulatory compliance - what are the challenges facing organizations today?
- The proactive approach to media management: defined product selection, sample archival testing, library audits, environmental audits, chip scanning and tape management through MM/TMS.
- The reactive approach to media management: data recovery, tape analysis/technical support, data conversion/migration, legal restores & file restoration.
- eDiscovery - why would my organization need a third party organization?
Part 2: The proactive approach to media management: defined product selection, sample archival testing, library audits, environmental audits, chip scanning and tape management through MM/TMS.
It is current practice for many organizations to continue to operate in the same way as they have for many years as the result of time and cost implications. The IT department lives in the hope that a data restoration and recovery operation, either in-house or externally, will be enough to avoid any consequences associated with the inability to produce targeted data should it be required. This approach has been substantial to date - so why change it?
However, with the exponential rise in the amount of information that needs to be stored and archived in addition to the legislation that can bring an organization under scrutiny, this approach is no longer acceptable. This is especially relevant when you consider that board room level employees could, in the worst case scenario, face imprisonment if the organization was unable to meet regulatory requirements.
While this may seem like a daunting task to the majority of IT departments, simple steps can be taken to help to ensure the integrity and availability of the data backed up and archived onto tape. Ideally the process should consist of a supply relationship that brings all the disciplines of data storage, recovery and retrieval directly to your organization by a process that ensures data integrity, reduces risk, improves performance and lowers cost.
On-site archival testing and library auditing aims to identify any problems that may affect the future restoration of data before they occur. The complexity of these audits is negotiable with the client and will reflect the nature of the data stored and the requirements made by regulatory and/or internal compliance policy. Environmental audits can help you achieve best practice in the data center environment via a thorough examination which includes particle counting, temperature humidity readings, tape care and handling procedures, storage recommendations (on site, off site) - typically this service is able to pinpoint problem areas before a significant loss in system efficiency, or even worse - loss of corporate data.
Another example of a possible key part of the process is LTO chip scanning; a service which of course is only relevant to users of LTO tape technology. This service is unique and enables predictive performance of tape pools and libraries to be trended by scanning the memory chip that holds key performance codes relating to the historical usage of the media and the drives within the library. The information gathered will indicate if the media and/or drives are performing within acceptable levels and specifications. The end result is a report that can clearly indicate where any problems are occurring, be it drives, application or media, therefore providing early warning of future problems, or problem determination when issues have been experienced.
Finally MediaMerge/Tape Management System, a software tool that eMag developed in-house to assist in the proactive management of off-site storage, solves the problems associated with the movement of storage media to a secure location. It then takes control of the implementation of corporate vaulting policies to ensure that not only is data stored for the necessary timeframe, it is also deleted when that information is no longer required. In addition to all of the above, it enables media checkout and data preservation which will be invaluable should your organization or persons within it find themselves under investigation.
The proactive approach to media management has changed drastically, but it has become even more necessary in the new legislative environment. Next month we will be covering the unavoidable reactive approach to media management which will detail the way in which you can get your organization out of a crisis. Please don't hesitate to contact us today if you have any comments or questions.
This article may be re-published as long as the following resource box is included at the end of the article and as long as you link to the email address and the URL mentioned in the resource box:
Article by eMag Solutions. For more articles on eDiscovery and Data Restoration, subscribe to our e-mail Newsletter by sending a blank email to newsletter@emaglink.com or by going to http://www.emaglink.com.