How many times do those of us that do DR have to scream from the mountaintop:
"DO NOT EVER USE A BANK FOR OFF SITE STORAGE" You will not be able to get to your tapes when you really need them, regardless of what the branch manager/VP tells you.
During a DR is a really bad time to find out you cannot get into your tapes due to the idiot Covid regulations or the time lock on the vault.
--
Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Paul Nelson
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 1:24 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion' <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Backup Tape rotation with Corona-virus.
I'd start by asking the bank if they want to continue having your business.
That being said, US Bank out here has been allowing customers to make an appointment to come inside the bank for various transactions (3 customers at a time). When I was there last week, I saw a customer go into the safe deposit vault to retrieve something.
You should be able to work out a similar arrangement with a bank in your area.
P.S. I saw the guy on the sidewalk a few minutes later, and told him I was surprised he was allowed into the safe deposit vault. He said, "Well, I have a lot of money in this bank, and they don't argue with my policy of rotating my concealed carry pistol every week." I asked him, "Where's your mask?" He said, "Where's yours?" We smiled, shook hands and went our separate ways. 😊
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of K Crawford
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 11:12 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Backup Tape rotation with Corona-virus.
As with many of you, the Corona-virus has caused many changes.
One for my company is, the bank would not allow us to enter the lobby and safe deposit box area. We kept our daily/weekly/monthly tape rotation in a safe deposit box. Every day (except Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays) we would take the previous night’s backup to the safe deposit box and retrieve the next tape in the rotation. Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays we saved to save files.
The quick solution was to pull all tapes from the safe deposit box and have an employee that is working on site keep them at their home and every day do the rotation.
So the question now is what if that person is sick or takes vacation or…
I have been tasked to look for alternatives. Here are some thoughts I have had.
1. We could use the save file every day (one save file for each day).
a. This assumes we have the storage space.
b. We could then save these to tape once a week or something and take off site.
2. I have been looking at a virtual tape image catalog.
a. I assume this will have some sort of compression so the storage space requirement would be less.
b. We could then save these to tape once a week or something and take off site.
3. We do have a disaster recovery box about 45 miles away that we replicate too using iTera.
a. Could we do the save to that box (not affecting our DR) using the virtual tapes or some other method?
i. Assuming our connection is big enough to
handle the volume.
4. We could purchase a tape library device.
a. That would get our daily save that we want.
b. To get it off site we could put it at our DR location.
i. Assuming our connection is big enough to
handle the volume.
Currently we have an auditor’s requirement of encrypted tape off site storage. I am sure if we came up with a good solution we could get the auditor’s to agree to it.
I cannot be the only one in this boat.
Any thoughts would be kindly accepted.
--
Kerwin Crawford
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