Data Protector cloud backups and the end of tape

The end of tape storage is not quite here yet. There are times when you really, really want to keep data off-line so that it is definitely safe from sysadmin accidents and sophisticated hackers.

But there is a lot of data that doesn't quite meet those needs. I've used rsync.net, and LiveVault and while they are useful too, what the world really needs is one backup solution that can do local disk, local tape and also replicate to the cloud very, very fast and very, very cheaply.

HP appears to have done this with Data Protector 9.02. There's a nice new option under "backup to disk" which appears to be a StoreOnce device running in the cloud.

I was already using HP's public cloud anyway for when I run Data Protector training classes, so it was just a matter of filling in my access keys and so on in the following screens.

The result is a device that can be used for backup, copying, restore, etc.  You can back up locally, and have an automatic copy job to replicate it to the cloud. Or you can backup your cloud-hosted servers direct to the cloud, and then drag it back down to copy off to your tape drives later.

At 9c/GB per month it's nowhere near the cheapest on the market (Google was 2c/GB per month last time I checked, and Amazon have their tape-like Glacier service at 1c/GB per month). But that's the cost of the space that you use: deduplication should take care of a lot of this.

What would be nice next: some way of replicating this to a tape library hosted by HP in their public cloud (similar to Amazon).


Greg Baker is an independent consultant who happens to do a lot of work on HP DataProtector. He is the author of the only published books on HP Data Protector (http://www.ifost.org.au/press/#dp). He works with HP and HP partner companies to solve the hardest big-data problems (especially around backup). See more at IFOST's DataProtector pages at http://www.ifost.org.au/dataprotector