Tape Elimination (VTL and encryption)

Many of our customers are modernizing backup architecture, with the goal of minimizing or even eliminating tape. Mitigating media loss risk, simplifying operations, and improving disaster recovery are key drivers for tape reduction in core and remote backup environments. Many customers are embracing VTL and deduplication/replication as an outright alternative to tape encryption. The typical reference architecture we develop in the field with mid-large enterprise customers still includes tape, yet repositions tape to store data of certain type and value, and for many customers significantly restricts the physical movement of offsite tape. Tape is being eliminated from remote site backups all together, given appropriate WAN bandwidth for replication of deduplicated data.

-John Merryman, GlassHouse Service Director