Vaulting Archive Data and Solutions for Overcrowded Tape Libraries

Vaulting Archive Data and Large Client Databases (TDP)

Archive and database data can quickly use a lot of storage in your tape library.  Duplicating this data to a copypool daily can significantly delay your daily vaulting.

AutoVAULT enables you to take your initial client archives and/or backups offsite, freeing expensive tape library slots and eliminating the time and media to duplicate the data.   With reliable tape technology, this can be a very valuable technique.

Or you may prefer to duplicate your data to a copy pool for offsite vaulting. Using AutoVAULT's multi-vault support, you can still vault the primary pool media to an onsite vault, freeing expensive tape library slots. 

Control when tapes are vaulted
AutoVAULT can restrict primary pool media vaulting to only eject FULL media and/or media that has not been referenced for a specific number of days.  Both options can be specified individually or combined.  This allows you to remove long term data, such as archives, from your library when the media is full, and vault it to an offsite or onsite vault location.

Library Management Solutions with AutoVAULT

Do you eject more tape than you have I/O ports? AutoVAULT can automatically alert your operators to empty the I/O ports so AutoVAULT can eject the rest of the tapes. How does this work? An error is printed on the tape pull report that says there is more media to go offsite but the I/O slots were full. The operator empties the slots and reruns AutoVAULT manually or it can be easily automated (the better choice) with a delay parameter. This allows you to rerun AutoVAULT automatically after a set number of minutes to eject the remaining media.

Do tapes get left onsite when they should be in the vault? AutoVAULT looks for tapes that are inadvertently onsite and sends them offsite again (dependent upon your configuration).

Running out of tape library slots? AutoVAULT can remove inactive media and free library space. You can restrict primary pool media vaulting to only eject FULL media and/or media that has not been referenced for a specific number of days.  Both options can be specified individually or combined.  This allows you to remove long term data, such as archives, from your library when the media is full and vault it to an onsite vault location freeing expensive tape library slots (since AutoVAULT has multi-vault support you can send your data to multiple locations).
 

How does it work

You have a 250 GB SQL Server database and take full backups of it daily using a TDP agent.  Your user wants to keep 14 copies for recovery.  Using other vaulting methods, you would have to copy all this data to a second series of tapes.  This process can take a long time especially if you are doing this for multiple servers.  If your backup fits on two tapes for example, you will have 14 times or 28 tapes filling your onsite tape library.

Using AutoVAULT, you would direct your TDP backup data to a separate primary tape pool.  Configure AutoVAULT to send that one primary pool offsite and it will automatically eject those tapes from your library daily.  AutoVAULT will report when to bring the empty tapes back too.  No need to wait hours copying the data.  No need to buy a larger, more expensive tape library to hold the tapes onsite.  

What do you lose

The only thing you lose is a second set of tapes to fall back to in case of media failure.  For many customers, there is not enough time in the day to copy all the data.  As long as these customers find their tape technology to be very reliable, this is a comfortable solution where the gain outweighs the risk.

What will you gain

You will gain back expensive tape library slots, tape media, and time, since you will no longer need to duplicate the data.

Solve your library challenges with AutoVAULT!

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