Re: Off-site backup storage Was: Managing PTF's...Strategy?

John Cirocco wrote:
> 
> Alan,
> 
> >>>Regarding tape management, it is not generally so much more risky
> >>>taking the tapes home (depending on where you live I suppose) than
> >>>the potential disaster of have them and your AS/400 burn up, drown,
> >>>or get stolen from work at the same time by leaving them there.
> 
> I would like to toss my $.02 in here.  I am against having an employee
> taking tapes home for the above scenario.  I once had a process where I
> took tapes home.  Since I came in at 7am and left at 4pm the tapes were
> still on site when a fire occured in the building at lunch time.  I was in a
> different portion of the building and could not get to the tapes.  My
> breathing restarted when I was told the fire did not affect the computer
> room, but hey-you never know...   I now have a service show up at 7am
> every weekday to pickup my tapes and take them away.
> 

This brings up an important point. Whether you store offsite or take
home tapes it is important to ALWAYS have one set out of the building. 
I used to manage a storage company and this was a common mistake many of
our customers made.  If you only send one tape offsite/home there will
be a period, however brief, when you have no offsite storage. Don't
count on the driver in case of emergency.  Also many times we would go
to make an deliver/pickup and the new set wouldn't be ready.  We were
usally told "well just leave these and pickup the rest later" 

Some things to look for in offsite storage

Climate controlled & Halon protected Vault.
Climate controlled & Halon protected Delivery vehicle.  Some companies
just use the A/C in their van.  This is ok ... if you are in alaska.

Tour the facilities.  See who has access to the vault and how access is
tracked.
See how they verify that a person calling for a delivery is authorized
to do so.  This varies greatly from company to company.  You need to
guard against ex employees & that over zealous one who will call and say
"I'm not sure which tape I need - just send them all"

Ask how they accomplish a Sunday morning 3 AM emergency delivery.  If
they are not staffed 24 hrs then they should have an "on-call" schedule
available.  
Tell them you want to "test-out" the emergency delivery during the 1st
month for no-charge.  Better to findout before you need the tapes if it
is going to take 6hrs to get them.

John L. Hall
Home Sales Co.
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