The End-of-Life Tape Library Predicament: What is the Best Migration Strategy?

In recent years Data Tape Library vendors and Optical Disk Archive vendors are opting to withdraw products from the market. Organizations face the daunting task of migrating their archives to an alternative storage platform. Whatever the size of the archive, and they can be vast, this is a traumatic situation for content owners. This predicament is particularly pressing for media companies, where the volume of data is immense and the need for reliable, long-term storage solutions is critical. In this blog, we explore the best migration strategies and discuss the role of Disk Archive Corporation’s ALTO system in ensuring a seamless transition to a non-proprietary platform, eliminating the threat of obsolescence and vendor Lock-in 

The End of Support and End of Life Challenge

Sony’s Petasite, Oracle's StorageTek SL150 Modular Tape Library are examples of a Tape Libraries reaching End of Support. Similarly, Sony's announcement regarding their Optical Disc Archive (ODA) highlights the industry's shift away from traditional data tape and optical storage. These changes leave companies with a pressing question: What should they do with their archives?

Cloud Storage: Pros and Cons

One option is to migrate data to the cloud. Cloud storage offers scalability and flexibility, but it comes with its own set of challenges:

• Data Security: Ensuring the security of data stored in the cloud can be difficult. Companies must trust that their data is protected from breaches and unauthorized access, and accept that the data can be stored across many borders.

• Cost & Convenience: While capital expenditure (CapEx) costs may be low, operational expenditure (OpEx) costs are high, especially with the costs of data ingress and egress. This is particularly relevant for media companies dealing with large volumes of data.

• Availability: Cloud storage relies on internet connectivity. Any disruption can impact access to critical data. The move away from owned infrastructure to a subscription model, has attractions but when the subscription stops the service stops. Time to buy back your Archive.

ALTO: A Hybrid Approach for the Transition and the Future

Disk Archive Corp's ALTO (Alternative to LTO) Cold Storage system offers a compelling alternative. ALTO can work as a standalone solution or complement existing tape and cloud systems. This hybrid approach allows organizations to gracefully move away from Data Tape or Optical Disks without losing access to their data. Here are some key advantages of ALTO:

• Seamless Integration: ALTO can integrate with existing archiving systems, including cloud solutions, ensuring high availability and timely access to content.

• Cost Efficiency: From a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective, ALTO is incredibly low-cost, with power consumption as low as 110W per petabyte at scale. A data center is not always required.

• Extended Media Life: Unlike tape systems that require frequent migrations, ALTO allows for a mix of any size disk from any vendor without any costly migration. From its inception 15-year years ago, Disk Archive systems continue to operate with their original disks. Disk replacement costs are all but eliminated.

• No Vendor Lock-in & No Obsolescence: An extended disk life drives down the lifetime cost of ownership, but no-one wants to be left behind in the disk capacity evolution. Users are able to operate with a mix of original 3 TB disks, up to the latest 26 TB disks, adding more on a buy-as-you-go basis. 30TB disks are coming to market now and even bigger capacities are on the horizon. Users can benefit from higher capacities and lower disk costs to increase storage density and reduce power consumption and A/C overheads

• Flexibility: Architecturally, ALTO is a Massive Array of Independent Disks. It is a true Offline Storage platform based on Replication rather than RAID. The disks in an ALTO are fully spun-down and stopped when not reading or writing data files. As well as saving vast amounts of power and extending the life of the disks, this provides a Virtual Airgap. Uniquely amongst disk storage systems, ALTO offers a Disk Vault capability for total physical security Hybrid systems with other storage technologies and Distributed Systems for Disaster Recovery

  
  

The Cost of Tape

When Disk Archive Corporation presented the ALTO concept in 2008, customers were contemplating migrating from LTO-3 to LTO-4. Since that time there have been six LTO releases. Each new generation requires data migration, which can be costly and complex.

Early LTO specifications provided backward compatibility to read and write to the two previous generations. After LTO-7 single generation reverse compatibility was required adding further to the total cost of ownership (TCO) for tape systems,

Ironically a customer contemplating ALTO would have marveled at the 3TB ALTO Disks, which we considered to be massive in their day. But over the same time period, the ALTO owner would have had compatibility with the entire range of disk capacities, a factor of 10 times, to today’s 30 TB disk

What if the Tape owner chose not to Migrate? Migration conceals the fact that Data Tapes are susceptible to wear and degradation, so it’s the devil or the deep blue sea, so to speak.

Should You Move to the Cloud?

While cloud storage has its benefits, Disk Archive Corporation’s position is not to compete with the cloud but to complement it. Depending on the solution, ALTO can break even around 14 months compared to cloud storage. For example, services like Glacier are seen as a last resort for data retrieval, not an active storage solution.

Spinning Disk Object Storage, available from any Public Cloud provider are simply too expensive for most budgets to use for Deep Archive and Preservation at Petabyte Scale. And seriously is there any need for millisecond access to a Deep Archive?

On the other hand, Data Tape in a Public cloud offers more affordable solution, but with an access latency that relegates this form of storage to a Copy of Last Resort for Disaster Recovery, rather than a Working Archive.  So the question becomes an economic one. How much can I afford to spend on my Archive?

The Value of Archives

Determining the value of archived content can be challenging. For Cultural and Historic Archives, the value will be priceless to the Governments or the organizations that own them. But in monetary terms, they may hold little value. How can a Cultural Archive justify the vast cost of Cloud Storage in perpetuity?

The same can be true for the Legislatures. Storing Legal Evidence, has little monetary value, but is critically important in society.

ALTO ensures that all data is preserved cost-effectively and remains easily accessible when needed.

As tape libraries reach End of Life, organizations must consider their migration strategies carefully. Disk Archive Corporation’s ALTO system provides a reliable, cost-effective solution that can complement existing tape and cloud systems. By adopting a hybrid approach, companies can ensure the long-term preservation of their data without the risks and costs associated with frequent migrations.

Why not explore what ALTO can do for your organization today?

About Disk Archive Corp

Founded in 2008, Disk Archive Corporation provides innovative, cost-effective storage solutions for long-term data preservation. Their flagship product, ALTO, offers a hardware-agnostic approach that allows organizations to seamlessly integrate the latest disk technology without costly migrations. With a focus on reliability, flexibility, and low total cost of ownership, Disk Archive Corporation serves many of the world's leading media companies, ensuring their valuable data remains secure and accessible for years to come.

Disk Archive Corp serves global markets including Film and TV Preservation, Legal Evidence Preservation, IT Backup, Security & Surveillance; Bio-Medical Imaging; Meteorology Data and Banking.  For further information, please visit our website at https://www.diskarchive.com.

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