FAQs
- Who are B&L Associates, Inc.™?
- What is Vertices®?
- Is Vertices a hardware or software solution?
- Why should I use Vertices?
- If I already have a backup system, why do I need Vertices?
- How does Vertices technology differ from other products on the market?
- What is Vault Management and how does Vertices take control?
- What is a Vertices Automation Agent™?
- Which backup applications does the Vertices Automation Module™ support?
- How does Vertices help an organization comply with federal and state regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley?
Who are B&L Associates, Inc.?
Since 1975, B&L Associates, Inc. has offered the most powerful, flexible and robust data center operations automation products and storage management solutions available for open and legacy environments. That's why industry-leading companies in 26 countries around the world such as AOL Time Warner, AT&T and QUALCOMM use the Vertices tape management system to manage and protect their media.
What is Vertices?
Vertices is a next-generation tape management system (TMS) that stores, moves, tracks, and protects your data center's media.
With the Vertices tape management software solution, you gain control over any media resource, from LTOs to CDs and DLTs. Vertices lets you know what's on those media, when you acquired the data, how long you should keep the data, when you should replace the media - all the information you need to comprehensively manage your tape library and to protect its contents.
In addition, the Vertices tape management software solution unifies all your storage locations into a centralized database. It bars unauthorized access to your media records. And equally important, Vertices prevents the inadvertent or premature purging of media.
Is Vertices a hardware or software solution?
Vertices is an integrated, easy-to-use tape management software solution for your tape tracking needs. Our Vertices tape management software tracks information about all your removable media and mission-critical data, no matter where you generate those data or where you store them.
Using the information it captures, Vertices then directs the actions you take to handle and control the physical media.
Vertices can even be integrated with your open systems backup application to automatically log your backup tapes, giving you greater control and assuring the most accurate information.
Why should I use Vertices?
The Vertices tape management system gives you instant access to all the mission-critical information within your company.
This is extremely important because information you cannot find may as well not exist, which means it cannot guide you or your organization in making the timely decisions needed in a fast-changing economy.
Plus, no matter how you acquire media, no matter where you store them, no matter when you need them, you have access.
The Vertices tape management system, allows you to track media from primary storage to supplemental storage to offsite facilities and back. It allows you to set retention periods by time, by number of copies, by ad-hoc designation, or by a combination of those options. It provides reports on every detail of its activities, and on every segment of data you store on your media. It tells you where to store media, when to move them, when to recycle them, when to replace them.
In short, with the Vertices tape management system, you attain maximum control over your backup tapes while reducing resource costs and enhancing the data center's responses to information requests.
If I already have a backup system, why do I need Vertices?
Vertices is a tape management system (TMS), not a backup application. Vertices works with your existing backup system to track the tapes used for backups. Vertices tells you where your backups reside and when each backup was generated. Further, if you install the automated features that link Vertices directly to your backup application, Vertices can automatically log and track all your backup tapes without requiring additional keyed entries from the operators, saving time and guaranteeing accuracy.
How does Vertices technology differ from other products on the market?
Vertices offers legacy-class functionality and stability in the open systems environment.
The demand for audited, secure media storage is rapidly expanding, just as the volume of media is growing exponentially. To manage huge quantities of media, you need a reliable, accurate system. To meet the demands of auditors, you need a secure system with full documentation and reporting capabilities. To leverage your company's information assets, you need a system that is flexible yet secure.
Legacy-class tape management has addressed such needs for years. But options for legacy-class systems in an open environment are limited.
Now Vertices offers the same robust, full-featured solution found in legacy tape management systems, for an open systems environment.
From tracking mechanisms to automated logging to vault management to variable retentions, Vertices offers more features and better solutions to your tape management needs than any other open-systems product.
What is Vault Management and how does Vertices take control?
Vault management is a method of storing and moving media to and from secured storage areas (the "vaults").
Some of the media in your data center do not require movements or vault storage. They are generated on-site, stored on-site, and then re-used. But other media - the ones that hold financial records, for example, or the ones that hold critical backups - may be stored on-site for a week or so, then moved to a secure off-site facility for a year, then returned to the main data center so they can be scratched for re-use.
The Vertices tape management system allows you to define such movements as "paths" and then apply those paths to defined "volumes." The path assignment ensures that every medium containing that volume (or set of files) follows exactly the same movement schedule, is handled exactly the same way, and is stored safely for exactly the amount of time you specify.
You may even specify whether - and when - to handle certain versions of a volume differently, so that you can keep weekly copies longer than daily copies, monthly copies longer than weekly, and so on. In addition, you can store those copies in serial-number order, in slots, in boxes, or at any ad-hoc location you specify.
There are no prescribed limits in Vertices - it allows you to set up exactly the handling instructions you need.
What is a Vertices Automation Agent™?
Automation Agents are the keys that unlock the full potential of the Vertices tape management system. A Vertices Automation Agent reads information logged by a backup application and then inserts the relevant data into the Vertices tape management database.
Backup applications working in a SAN or LAN environment create backup media on an established schedule and log information about such backups. When integrated with your backup application, the Vertices tape management system can capture the same information your backup system is logging. Vertices uses that information to automatically log the backup tapes into the Vertices tape management database and then it automatically applies the handling instructions appropriate to the backups. As a result, the Vertices tape management system can monitor retentions for the backup tapes, control their movements, and scratch any outdated versions.
Which backup applications does Vertices Automation Module™ support?
The Vertices tape management system currently provides automation capabilities for VERITAS® NetBackup™ & Backup Exec™, LEGATO® NetWorker®, Hewlett Packard OpenView® Omniback II™, Syncsort Backup Express™, BakBone NetVault™, and Computer Associates® BrightStor ARCserve®. For questions about your backup application contact B&L Associates.
How does Vertices help an organization comply with federal and state regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley?
Federal regulation such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley require that healthcare institutions and publicly traded companies (respectively) institute controls to make sure electronic information is secure. The Vertices tape management system tracks all the tapes in your company, so you'll never lose another tape. Vertices' purge protection feature and ability to handle even the most complicated retention schedules means the information on those tapes will not be erased or written over. And with a two-tiered, role-based security system, access to those tapes remains secure at all times. Plus, Vertices can produce comprehensive reports for auditors with just a few clicks of the mouse.