Key Takeaways from ARMA International InfoCon 2020

Dean Felicetti, our director of Information Governance, recently spoke at ARMA’s International InfoCon about backup tapes and their role in discovery, business continuity, and governance. During his webinar, he detailed how preservation, cataloging/indexing, and restoration play a role in backup tape accessibility and discovery.

Preservation, being the duplication of source media, is essential for business, legal, risk, compliance, and record management. There are several methods to duplication including tape to tape, tape-like format to the same format, tape-like format to an unlike format, as well as preserving tape images up to the cloud.

There are several reasons why preservation is crucial. Consolidation, converting a tape-like format to an unfamiliar format, helps with storage by taking information on several tapes and putting it into one. For instance, taking 150 DLT4s and transferring it to 1 LTO7 is a case of consolidation. Many companies preserve for business continuity and store their tapes off-site at vaults. In a case that an employee needed a data set, such as emails, having that information off-site is important.

Cataloging and indexing “help to paint a picture of the universe of backup tapes” of certain information. An instance where cataloging and indexing come into play is when a company is required to restore cloud data from tape but not all of those backup tapes are responsive. A way to solve this problem is through backup tape cataloging.

Sullivan|Strickler’s software, Invenire, aides in high-level cataloging, through capturing metadata of the tape contents. The metadata captured is file names, mailbox information, file types, and date range. This is pivotal for data mapping, litigation purposes, business continuity, and records management.

The reasons why tapes are required for restoration include discovery requirements, business continuity, internal recovery needs, and certification of recovery. In several cases, data is stored on the cloud, but that cloud data sits on tapes. This results in needing to turn to these tapes regarding the reasons stated prior. Information on backup tapes includes mailboxes, network shares, loose eDocs, and previously deleted recovery, such as structured, unstructured, or semi-structured data. Semi-structured data includes emails where loose .PSTs may be held.

metadata

Understanding the laws that work hand-in-hand with tape restoration is quintessential. There are several privacy laws that mandate having data encrypted. It is important to keep up-to-date with these privacy laws and have a plan in place regarding data restoration.

“It is always a pleasure to speak backup tapes and their role in Information Governance, but especially with an engaged group of records, compliance, IT and legal professionals disbursed amongst ARMA International chapters,” says Dean Felicetti, Director of Information Governance for Sullivan|Strickler.

If you are interested in learning more about data restoration from backup tapes, a copy of the presentation or would like a demo of Invenire, please contact dfelicetti@sullivanstrickler.com.