Many businesses often wonder whether it is worth paying for offsite tape storage as part of their disaster recovery plans when it seems so simple to handle it all in-house instead. After all, why pay someone else to do a service that you can do on your own? It is actually possible to run your own data protection program, and many businesses do in fact do it; yet, it is risky, and certainly not always a wise idea.
Running your own data protection involves designing a secure system that not only stores your backup tapes in a secure location, but also provides for accountability for every step along the way. A key factor to remember is that backup tapes require a lot of human interaction to store, leaving your data vulnerable to prying eyes or human error in between the server room and the storage room. Encrypting your data can help protect against prying eyes, but you will still need to develop a system that defends against losing the tapes or letting them get damaged in transit. It is very easy to damage data tapes with extreme temperatures, such as the heat inside of a car trunk in the summer.
Even assuming that you develop a system that defends against both malicious intent and accidental damage or loss, you will still need to secure your end point. A bank safety deposit box is the safest option beyond professional offsite tape storage, yet many businesses institute policies that ask the IT professional to take the backup data home with them instead. This is a horrible idea that often results in lost or damaged data. If it is not handled properly your company could easily lose a week worth of data, or worse yet need to report a security breach to its customers and start monitoring for fraud. This is why it is generally much easier and safer to rely on professional services instead of concocting an in-house system.
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offsite tape storage