<p>In an age of cloud and large capacity hard disk drives, tape is an obsolete means of managing and recovering data at enterprises.<br><br>In a world that is increasingly driven by cloud and mobile forces, organizations need to reassess their storage, backup and security strategies<br><br>As organizations increasingly look to information as a strategic source of business value and competitive advantage, the volume of data at their fingertips is growing at an exponential rate. A spike in the number of users and smart devices connected to the Internet makes the digital universe double in size every two years. By 2020, it will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes, according to a recent IDC study. While this has unleashed a new wave of opportunities for businesses around the world, CIOs are now facing added concerns around data management and security. In Asia-Pacific, 72 per cent of organizations rate the exponential growth and increasing complexity of data as one of their top data management challenges (IDC/Commvault Whitepaper, 2015).<br><br>A few years ago, the answer to addressing these data challenges was tape storage. Virtual tape, and later virtual tape libraries (VTL) had ruled the data center for many years. With the increasing volume of data that organizations have to deal with, the need for agility and flexibility in terms of backup solutions and strategies is now critical to support business success. While VTL was seen as a high performance backup solution in the past, it is now in its sunset phase and in many cases hindering innovation. Though tape is often viewed as a cost-effective and reliable solution for long-term retention, managing and recovering the data can be a labor-intensive task which doesn't scale.<br><br>CIOs need to ensure that their most critical business data is available and protected, but also deliver a capability to restore data in a quick and easy fashion. Cloud has begun to offer more agile, cost effective and flexible solutions that makes one reconsider traditional in-house technology. We are near the tipping point where tape could be overtaken by cloud-information management in the enterprise.<br><br>Why migrating to cloud may work for you!<br><br><strong>Cuts Costs and More Reliable</strong><br>Businesses which utilize cloud services instead tape are able to cut 30 percent in costs by reducing unnecessary manpower, media and recall costs. This simplifies data management and improves reliability in recovering data. On the other hand, the quality of tape can also diminish over time and poses a risk of unrecoverable critical data.<br><br><strong>Easy to Maintain</strong><br>Data growth forces tape-bound enterprises to increase the frequency of backups, which can be labor-intensive and expensive. Further, due to tape recording data sequentially, it can be time intensive to retrieve data. In comparison, backups to the cloud allow highly regulated companies to use a single platform to automate and tier backups, while ensuring easily and fast recovery of data.<br><br><strong>Offers Scalability and Flexibility</strong><br>Cloud services have facilitated a change in the way companies operate, by offering shared and virtualized infrastructure which is easily scalable. This allows quick and easy allocation of resources in a monitored environment where overloading is never a concern, as long as the system is managed properly.<br> <br><strong>Highly Scalable</strong><br>Cloud computing has also changed the way one pays for resources. In the past, tasks that required considerable processing power or space needed significant capital investments in hardware. Now, cloud computing allows these users to purchase scalable space for heavy duty data-crunching on demand, so that you pay only for what you use.<br><br><strong>Provides Additional Security</strong><br>Enterprises are often misguided to believe that storing tape on-site reduces the risk of data breach or loss. Ironically, this increases the chances of data loss or corruption. If your work site gets affected and your data is hosted in the cloud, it minimizes the impact on critical enterprise data, with an added benefit of maximizing accessibility of data from other parts of the world.<br><br>In recent years, cloud computing has been providing a far safer environment for storing data. Migrating data from tape to cloud and following the relevant industry processes of encryption and security fundamentally provides a better level of security. Moreover, with recent advances in cloud computing, organizations can now have the assurance that their data is secure, while maximizing the cost benefits associated with cloud.<br><br>No doubt, tape was seen as a high performance backup solution in the past. However, with the changing needs of enterprises, it is now in its sunset phase. As we see momentum gaining around cloud computing, it is inevitable that methods of storage will shift too.<br><br><em>The author, Ramesh Mamgain, is area vice president - India and SAARC at Commvault</em></p>
