A South African company sees significant growth in the local disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) market, a trend that has also been noted internationally, as businesses seek to improve their backup procedures.
Drive Control Corporation storage division manager Raul Del Fabbro believes an increasing number of organisations are beginning to feel the pinch of backup procedure interfering with normal day-to-day LAN activity.
"Conventional disk-to-tape backup takes longer and longer the more data there is to backup, thus slowing down LAN traffic. Many companies are seeing this as a reason to improve backup procedures," Del Fabbro says.
He explains that a D2D2T system, where data is backed up from the primary disk to a backup disk, before being placed on tape, can be done at disk-speed, with is much faster than disk-to-tape.
Another factor for businesses` shift to D2D2T technology, Del Fabbro says, is the ease of data accessibility.
"Following a backup, most data recalls occur within a 72-hour period - a procedure which could take long with a tape-based appliance. However, with a disk, data can be accessed almost immediately, and many organisations are choosing to keep their backed up data on disk for a certain amount of time before placing it on tape."
Del Fabbro believes the role of tapes, in terms of data backup, will change in the near future.
"I don`t see tapes disappearing, but they will most likely be used solely for archiving," he says, adding that the South African D2D2T market has seen significant growth since the beginning of this year.
John Martini, sales manager for Overland REO, whose products are locally distributed by Drive Control Corporation, recently visited SA and commented that disk-to-disk solutions are easy to administrate and easy to use.
"Human intervention is often where the failure [with disk-to-tape solutions] lies. Someone forgets to replace a tape, or forgets to post completed tapes to the company`s head office," he said.
He added that this can be overcome with software components that allow the transfer of backup data from one location to another.
"We are seeing a subtle shift in SA in the adoption of D2D2T solutions, in line with the standard lag of six to 10 months behind the US and Europe."
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