Tape Environment Services
Overview
Tape storage is part of many organizations’ disaster recovery and archive initiatives. Unfortunately, backups and recoveries fail at all too regular rates, placing crucial corporate data at risk. These failures can be due to a complex mix of issues relating to the tape drives, media, network and applications, and result in risk to data, system down time and budget impacts.
Crossroads Tape Environment Services offer three distinct services providing a detailed assessment of your tape storage system. Insight is obtained by collecting real-time operational information from the tape library, tape drives and media. The Library Monitoring and Alert Service provides timely insight into potentially-degrading conditions, allowing you to take immediate, corrective actions that minimize risk to corporate data. The Site Analysis Survey synthesizes data from the entire library into a comprehensive analysis and delivers detailed reports with actionable recommendations and projected cost savings. The Tape Verification Service validates the readability of every tape, assuring data will be recoverable when needed. With these services, organizations can maximize existing backup resources, avoid unnecessary capital expenditures, save time troubleshooting storage issues, meet compliance requirements and reduce the risk of losing data.
Visibility into potentially degrading conditions allows companies to schedule proactive, corrective and cost-saving maintenance on suspect devices before issues occur, rather than requiring extensive and expensive system-wide troubleshooting after events turn critical. The Library Monitoring and Alert Service tracks a wide range of library parameters and provides daily reports on all triggered alerts. This Service reports on Critical events, such as lost device communications or serious error conditions that can place successful backups or restores in jeopardy. The Service also reports on Cautionary, Concern or Informational conditions, such as poor drive efficiency or high device load counts that can have a long-term impact on system costs, capital expenditures or successful data recovery.
The Library Monitoring and Alert Service is available as an annual service.
A tape library system can comprise of a sizable percentage of your company’s storage budget and is typically a critical component of your business’ disaster recovery program. However, few tools provide a truly insightful view into a library’s health, performance and utilization, and the current business climate allows IT departments scarce resources for system-wide analysis. The Crossroads Site Analysis Survey Service monitors the real-time operation of your tape storage system, examines the collected data and delivers a bound report complete with a detailed analysis of the environment, actionable recommendations and projected cost savings. All Site Analysis Survey reports are divided into individual comprehensive sections that provide insight into the efficiency and performance of existing assets, data risk due to defective or degrading components, and potential down-time due to over-used equipment. In addition, each analysis provides a complete view into the behavior of the environment, the impact of this behavior on the success and reliability of your backups, and clear recommendations on how to mitigate risk and improve cost savings.
The Site Analysis Survey is available as a one-time service, providing a detailed view of your environment over a 30-day window or as an ongoing service, providing regular quarterly reports.
Tape is a cost-effective, reliable and environmentally-sound approach for long-term storage of business-critical data. However, as with any storage medium, errors can occur during the initial write or media may degrade over time, placing future data recovery in jeopardy. The Crossroads Tape Verification Service reduces the risk of critical data failures by validating that the information written to each tape can still be read. Early detection of degrading media allows you to implement corrective measures proactively instead of discovering that your data is unreadable during an emergency. The Tape Verification Service provides full reports showing metrics of all tapes verified, presenting clearly-documented records for regulatory compliance or Service Level Agreement (SLA) audits. By verifying media stored in the library, businesses can lower costs associated with tape and be assured that data will be recoverable when needed.
The Tape Verification Service is available on a per-tape basis.
Zero Impact to Storage Infrastructure
Information for all services is obtained through the Crossroads ReadVerify™ Appliance (RVA®), a standalone, self-contained device that installs quickly into your Storage Area Network. There are no agents to install and no additional servers or components to purchase. Data collection is performed out-of-band of the backup or data application and has no impact on the existing backup infrastructure.
Summary
With the Crossroads Tape Environment Services, you gain clear insight into your tape storage environment, allowing informed opportunities for cost savings, risk mitigation and improved operation. With the increased visibility into the operation and usage of your library, you can proactively manage resources and address issues to minimize downtime and ensure the recoverability of your business-critical data.
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