01889 503100In a nutshell, if you want the best quality tapes, make sure they are FUJIFILM manufactured…
https://www.media-resources.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/LTO9-TAPE-TECHNOLOGY-IS-NOT-EQUAL.pdf
“LTO tape to keep rolling for 5 more generations”- Blocksandfiles.com
The overlords behind the LTO Program have laid out the future of the tape technology, with plans to take the format to at least 1.4PB of compressed storage over the next five generations….
Spectra Certified Media offers many great benefits from media lifecycle management to hassle free ordering… Check out all the benefits
Spectra LTO-9 Certified Media can save hundreds or even thousands of hours of drive usage for customers. Upgrade today to LTO-9 to start those savings… More information
Spectralogic were going about their normal business operations, until the morning, May 7th 2020, when they were hit with a Ransomware attack… That day was everything but normal operations…
click the link below to Read more to see how they overcame the attack.
This software was specially designed by Fujifilm to secure object storage, not only does it allow you to benefit from the many advantages of tape, it also easily interfaces with your own object storage solution. As a result, Object Archive allows large companies to improve the security of their data and increase the performance of their backup system, while reducing the costs of long-term storage, by combining tape technology with that of hard disk.
The strengths of our data storage solution can be summarized as follows:
• Openness: we wanted to develop a data storage software that was as open as possible and offer users maximum freedom of choice when it comes to the elements, which constitute the complete solution (compatibility with object storage software, tape libraries, and in terms of the interface protocol).
• Scalability: a flexible system that scales easily and cost-effectively as capacity requirements increase, and which provides a very large storage capacity:
– Fujifilm Object Archive can support the creation of 1 PB to 1.6 EB (Exabytes) of data.
– It can save up to 128 billion objects.
– It supports up to 64 logical servers.
• The exit strategy: the open source writing format developed by Fujifilm and designed specifically for object storage is called the OTFormat. Among other things, it guarantees a free and easy exit strategy at the end of the subscription.
• Performance: A solution that improves the actual operational write speed. Fujifilm Object Archive software gathers small files into 10GB packs before writing them on tape. This avoids any write stoppages that slow down the performance of the data backup.
None of this would have been possible, however, if we had not developed our own tape writing format, the OTFormat, to increase the flexibility of the system. On the one hand, it gives the user a high level of security, as the metadata is backed up four times on tape, but it also increases the write performance and offers a simple exit strategy. The OTFormat is self-describing and all specifications are available on GitHub or Fujifilm’s website.
By using Fujifilm tapes and technology, you not only benefit from the fruit of decades of R&D in the field of data storage, but also from the know-how of a team of technicians and developers dedicated to tape technology and Fujifilm Object Archive who can help with any tape-related queries or software customization.
There’s no shortage of stories reporting the – supposedly –imminent death of tape storage. The stories always cite the drawbacks of the technology, which, granted, are not insignificant.
For many small and medium businesses, tapes can be labour-intensive, requiring a manual process to change them at the beginning or end of every day. Tapes can also be misplaced or outright lost.
These factors and more have given tape storage a poor reputation in today’s marketplace, and they are helping to drive the steady migration to flash storage and cloud storage
But here’s the thing. Despite all its drawbacks, tape as a means of data storage is more relevant than ever…. READ MORE
The LTO-9 open standard boosts the transfer speed of magnetic tape, which seems like an improvement, but that might not make tape a more attractive option for backup.
Magnetic storage tape has’t been the recommended destination for the initial backup copy of data for quite some time, and the question is whether LTO-9, the latest tape open standard, and other market dynamics will changed that.
Here’s a look at modern tape drives, discussion of the degree to which ransomware changes the equation, and a closer look at LTO-9…
Your data may be the most critical and valuable commodity that you have, but is your organisation adequately protected from data breaches and are you compliant with necessary industry regulations? Without insight into your existing data, how can you plan or respond to data risks effectively?
Sensitive Data Governance
Powered by Commvault Activate software, our Sensitive Data Governance assessment is a one-time, cloud orchestrated search and analytics service which enables you to uncover sensitive data such as PII, Credit Card, Health or other critical corporate data that is stored within your unstructured data silos.
By using an the Data Assessment, businesses can:
- Search and identify data containing PII, Credit Card or Health information
- Define custom data search terms for a more personalised risk assessment
- Understand file ownership and assess the level of access to data
- Search against on-premise data sources as well as M365 and G-Suite
- Provide a baseline from which to build or improve upon your data
governance strategy
Engagement Workflow
Are you Future Ready?
Using powerful search and analytics tools, we can help your organisation to understand what current data risks exist through comprehensive data visibility, enabling you to make content aware decisions and allowing you to design and implement effective policies.
A Tool for GDPR
Personally identifiable information (PII) is the subject of compliance obligations such as GDPR. The challenge is understanding whether PII exists, and if so where and how it is stored. The Data Assessment provides this insight by locating PII data patterns, giving you a tool to help form or refine your approach to GDPR. In addition, it can be used as a point solution for subject access requests such as Right of Access and Right to be Forgotten.
How Data Assessment Works
A typical engagement is carried out over 4-8 weeks to allow the necessary time required for the setup, deployment,
capturing and reporting of the results.
Why backup Microsoft 365?
Over 80% of organisations worldwide have switched at least some of their core IT to the cloud, and approximately half of these are on Microsoft 365.
Some organisations conflate Microsoft 365 and other cloud services with backup solutions. Their assumption is that because the data is stored offsite from their own premises, this means it is backed up.
As this article will detail, doing so can be a costly mistake both from the perspective of regulatory compliance, and business continuity. Increasing numbers of UK organisations now keep some or all of their critical data in the 365 suite including SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive and Outlook.
In the event of a ransomware attack, accidental deletion or overwriting of files, or a compliance audit, it is vital to be able to return to a specific point in time prior to an incident occurring. The inbuilt tools within Microsoft 365 do not provide this ability.
‘Data retention’ versus ‘data backup’
According to Microsoft’s user license agreement, it provides ‘data retention’ – there is no mention of backup. In the vendor’s own words, its data retention policy does not provide backup.
The implication of this is that if data is deleted, Microsoft only retains it for a 90 day period before it is permanently deleted with no potential for recovery. Worse, if files or folders are overwritten by users either in error or deliberately, then crucial data objects can be instantly lost.
Microsoft 365 and backup
The best way to think of Microsoft 365 is a suite of collaboration tools. It allows users to efficiently share work, ensure availability, and create logical folders in SharePoint.
The crucial point to note when talking about backup is that although SharePoint and Teams files may look like archives, they are not automatically backed up to provide historical snapshots.
Compliance considerations
As well as the internal disruption that can be caused by data being overwritten, other implications can be even more undesirable. Because it is not methodically backed up or archived, files and folders hosted in Microsoft 365 do not satisfy many regional, national, or regional the data retention policies.
As a consequence, a failure to backup Microsoft 365 can leave organisations exposed to data erasure or loss, either as a result of genuine user error or more malicious intent. This can mean vital data cannot be provided for an audit or to satisfy a regulatory obligation. Similarly, it can lead to the loss of key financial data, contracts or product development documentation.
How to properly backup data in Microsoft 365
Because of the way Microsoft provides ‘data retention’ as opposed to backup, additional measures are required to properly backup 365 data. This ensures key documentation is not overwritten, and that compliance obligations can be met.
Working in partnership with ORIIUM, Media Resources SaaS integrates directly with the Microsoft 365 tenant to backup to a variety of storage targets to plug these gaps in Microsoft 365’s native functions. It can also carry out full or granular restores of protected data to protect against threats such as accidental deletion, user deletion, ransom attacks, and other service interruptions.
The solution provides further guard against Microsoft 365 outages by using an organisation’s own cloud targets or on-premise storage destinations. The process is also fully automated which means no manual configuration is required to setup new users – it works with a simple policy-based automatic backup.
As an additional layer of safeguard to protect against accidental deletion, users cannot access the backed up data. This ensures no accidental deletion or malicious purges can take place.
A complete solution from only £8.50 per user per year
Media Resources SaaS provides comprehensive protection for all Office 365 data. This reduces cost and complexity by eliminating the need for multiple backup protection platforms.
It also provides a complete vision of all data sources including Microsoft 365, G Suite and Salesforce. To satisfy regulatory compliance obligations, it also enables long-term retention policies to be created. In the event of data loss or ransom attack, the solution also provides a granular search, specified point-in-time recovery, and out-of-place data restore options to enable data to be redeployed onto a different device if required.
