News
Managing Media in Networked Environments
Michael Kramer
B&L Associates, Inc.
220 Reservoir Street, Ste. 15
Needham, MA 02494 USA
(781) 444-1404/5805 fax
mkramer@bandl.com
ADMINISTRATIVE AND TECHNICAL ISSUES
The tape management issue has two parts -- administrative and technical. The administrative processes that are put in place must reflect the organizational characteristics of the enterprise. The technologies and procedures must ensure that the administrative policies can be implemented.
Any tape management system designed to support networked environments must control the movement, retention and inventorying of the physical tapes, CDs and other media from any source to make sure that they can be easily located and returned online at the appropriate time and place.
The tape management challenge for information managers of open systems is to fully leverage the flexibility of open systems while applying a disciplined structure that offers the same level of control that can be found in legacy systems. A comprehensive, open tape management system is not tied to a single operating system or even a single backup/storage solution. Yet, it provides a single, disciplined, tape management solution across the enterprise that has the capability to control all of the media generated by any source -- from desktops to mainframes.
TAPE MANAGEMENT ADMINISTRATIVE POLICIES
The administration of a tape management environment can be complex and may differ from the administration of the online storage system. International organizations, for instance, generate accounting data in every country yet the archival backup requirements may differ since tax laws and corporate rules may mandate different retention periods. Sales data may be aggregated across several geographies yet the media must be managed as a single set of volumes. Data that support multi-site manufacturing operations must be managed in a coordinated manner. Administration starts with identifying all of the networked storage sites that hold critical data. This may extend to workstations, desktops and even portable devices.
Organizational issues such as efficient media movement, safety logistics and other administrative or technical considerations require that the creation of media for offline storage take place at a different site on the network. The policies must make sure that certain issues are addressed for complete tape management. The following are a list of criteria that a tape management system must have in order to fully control all tape management regardless of whether it is for a legacy system or for a fibre channel open network:
