THE EDGE
TAPE ITSELF IS VERY SECURE , WITH BUILT-IN ENCRYPTION
AND ADDITIONAL SECURITY
PROVIDED BY THE FACT THAT
IT CANNOT
BE ACCESSED OFFLINE BY MALWARE .
tape itself is very secure , with builtin encryption and additional security provided by the fact that it cannot be accessed offline by malware .
Keeping a backup copy of critical data on tape provides a secure recovery solution in the event of a ransomware attack , but it also protects in case of software bugs . In 2011 , a flaw in a software update caused Google to accidentally delete the saved email messages in about 40,000 Gmail accounts . Thankfully , the data was also stored on tape and Google could salvage the lost data from that backup .
3 . Tape is ideal for long-term archiving
Tape has become a key technology for long-term data archiving and cold data storage – this refers to inactive data that must be kept for years or even decades . For many organisations the majority of the data being generated will be this cold data set and tape is an ideal storage solution to help manage costs and preserve access to this valuable inactive data . It ’ s no wonder financial institutions and hyperscale cloud providers especially have come to rely on tape for high-volume , low-cost storage .
4 . Tape innovation is ongoing
Innovation continues in tape storage technology . Aside from innovations to increase cyber-resiliency , as mentioned previously , there are other developments focused on optimising storage capabilities . For example , there are solutions now available in the market that enable any organisation generating petabytes of data to deploy cloud-based Amazon S3 Glacier Class storage within their own data centre , colocation facility , or hosted IT environment . This enables archiving cold inactive data at low-cost , with a reduction of as much as 80 %, using any amount of HDD and tape storage , and all deployed as-a-Service for ease of deployment and usability .
The advantages of tape like low cost , cyber-resiliency and new capabilities and innovations , speak directly to the current data storage needs for businesses across all industries – whether earth sciences , media production , government , or technology . It ’ s a logical addition to a storage strategy for any organisation and those that may have underestimated the capabilities of tape will be scrambling to embrace it in 2022 and beyond . �
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