Media Management
Most backup environments have in common a main high-cost component: media. Media costs in any backup environment dominate over time, as more media is used and taken off-site for long-term storage. Backup administrators face a continual cycle of media being sent off-site and returned after a suitable period for recycling but do not have the details required to understand exactly which media have expired and hence which to recall. The result is that large amounts of media containing no useful information end up taking up space in off-site locations while new media is purchased to keep up with existing backup requirements. There are also potentially higher costs to not recycling media than the cost of new media itself: regulatory compliance and legal discovery procedures can expose companies to hefty fines unless the company can prove that it has returned all relevant backups. Companies without an active and enforced data destruction policy risk inability to show that all relevant backups have been searched for required information and subsequent fines.
WysDM for Backups monitors media details and uses this information to provide comprehensive reports and analyses. The reports can provide high-level overviews of the number of tapes allocated to each backup server, tape library, or backup pool or detailed information on individual pieces of media. Full contents of a piece of media are available, as is a list of all media that contains backups of a particular filesystem or client. This functionality allows users to generate pick lists of media that might be required for a particular restore operation. In addition, WysDM for Backups can generate daily or weekly reports that provide a list of media that should be taken out of the tape library and sent off-site, along with a list of media that should be returned from off-site locations for recycling. Each of these reports can be emailed to the appropriate person or group, and analyses can be put in place to ensure that off-siting and recycling of tapes are carried out as required by the business. This combination of reports and analyses allows the creation and continued monitoring of a full media management policy.
WysDM for Backups monitors media details and uses this information to provide comprehensive reports and analyses. The reports can provide high-level overviews of the number of tapes allocated to each backup server, tape library, or backup pool or detailed information on individual pieces of media. Full contents of a piece of media are available, as is a list of all media that contains backups of a particular filesystem or client. This functionality allows users to generate pick lists of media that might be required for a particular restore operation. In addition, WysDM for Backups can generate daily or weekly reports that provide a list of media that should be taken out of the tape library and sent off-site, along with a list of media that should be returned from off-site locations for recycling. Each of these reports can be emailed to the appropriate person or group, and analyses can be put in place to ensure that off-siting and recycling of tapes are carried out as required by the business. This combination of reports and analyses allows the creation and continued monitoring of a full media management policy.
