A Long Term View of Archiving – BLM in a box

The "Storage Products of the Year" in the February, 2006 issue of Storage Magazine has me thinking about the future of backup and archiving. The backup hardware awards went to a pair of tape libraries and a compressing disk based backup appliance. The tape library systems were recognized for support of four different media types (Sun L1400M) and for modular field upgradeability (Quantum PX500). The disk based appliance was recognized for compression rates of twenty to one and compatibility with existing backup software (Data Domain DD460). Taken together, I feel these products point towards the future of long term archiving – why not build it all into a single box? I think that the ultimate backup and archiving solution of the future would bring out the best of each of these technologies:

• Disk based archival for short term recovery
• Robotically controlled tape and/or optical for long term/portable archival
• Compression/de-duplication for capacity savings (for both disk AND tape/optical)
• Supporting multiple media formats
• Using a mechanically modular building block approach
• That can be managed as a single system
• With policy based automatic migration to/from disk/tape/optical

ESG research confirms that while users are moving towards disk-based solutions for digital archiving, tape and optical continue to play a strategic role due to their cost effective portability. For example, in a recent poll of 568 IT and records management professionals, 38% report that they currently use a mix of near-line disk and tape/optical to meet their short and long-term digital archiving needs and 33% use only tape/optical. In that same research, the trend towards disk-based archiving is on the rise, yet the majority of respondents indicate that they will continue to use tape/optical either alone or in conjunction with disk.

Imagine the benefits if disk, tape and optical could be delivered in single, modular system that is easy to manage. In other words, why can't we have Backup Lifecycle Management (BLM) in a box? BLM in a box would satisfy short and long term backup and archiving needs while moving secondary copies of primary data to and from the right tier of storage, at the right place, at the right time, at the best price.