Long-term Inactive Data Retention through Tape Storage Technology Ivan Vican Metronet telecommunications d.d., Croatia Ph.D. Hrvoje Stančić, assistant prof. Department of Information Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb

2 Contents 1.Expanding the volume of digital data 2.Relevance of data over time 3.Tape systems 4.Tape standards: A.Linear Tape-Open technology B.Enterprise Tape technology 5.Archiving capabilities

3 1. Expanding the volume of digital data Digital data long-term retention for legal, administrative, historical or cultural heritage purposes Hyper production of digital data + digitization of conventional data How to sustain growth and accumulation of retained digital data? Tape storage technology as an adequate solution?

4 2. Relevance of data over time Important variable that influences the choice of storage technology is frequency of reuse Data lifecycle is providing insight in data value fluctuation, which is measured by frequency in given time (business approach) Due to their nature and purpose, in institutions such as archives, museums and libraries data has a constant value

5 2. Relevance of data over time … Source: Horison Information Strategies

6 3. Tape systems Devices that utilize tape medium Three types of systems: 1.Tape drive - provides physical and logical structure for reading and writing processes. 2.Tape autoloader - tape drive and an automated tape cartridge exchange system with up to ten tape cartridges in the housing. 3.Tape library - two or more tape drives, depending on the quantity of tape cartridges which can rise up to a few thousand. Cartridges are exchanged with robotic mechanism.

7 4. Tape standards: LTO (Linear Tape- Open) technology Developed at the end of 1990s by LTO Consortium First open format tape standard which features high capacity and performance for archiving purposes. Most commonly used tape storage standard Features data encryption and Write Once Read Many (WROM) capabilities at the device level

8 4. Tape standards: LTO technology … Backward compatibility for two generations Clearly defined Six generation roadmap

9 4. Tape standards: Enterprise tape technology Primary developed for the needs of mainframe systems Proprietary tape technologies Used for transactional process with application such as LOB (Line-Of-Business), OLTP (OnLine Transaction Processing), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and other high duty cycle applications Enterprise tape technology is dominant in the Virtual Tape Libraries (VTL) Faster transfer rate and higher capacity

10 5. Archiving capabilites In the past, reliability was the weakest point of the tape storage technology Drawbacks are solved with new technical features and fully automated systems Archival life of tape is up to 30 years High rate of load/unload cycles Entry level LTO-4 libraries are scalable up to native capacity of 20 TB, 40 TB and 2-4 tape drives

11 5. Archiving capabilites … The tape libraries can be easily reconfigured and upgraded to the new tape technologies Open format standard with generation roadmap -> easier planning of digital archives Green technology Most affordable storage technology

12 Conclusion Archives, museums and libraries –should hold dual tape systems –virtualization of data at disk storage while it is being retrieved from tape storage – for users –secondary system (electronic vault) off site – not for users – disaster recovery – tape storage How much? 1TB = apx books Entry LTO-4 (2 drives, 20 tape cartridges) = apx. € 15,000 for 16TB system Consider tape technology for large storage systems!!!

Ivan Vican, Ph.D. Hrvoje Stančić, assistant prof. THANK YOU! Long-term Inactive Data Retention through Tape Storage Technology