The Wikibon community debated the pros and cons of online data backup, recovery, and DR versus traditional tape with Mike Adams, storage specialist for service provider Lighthouse Computer Systems,  on Tuesday, April 3. Adams started his presentation on Lighthouse’s service with what turned out to be a controversial statement – that it could replace tape backup.

Lighthouse is an online data backup and storage provider that uses the Actifio Protection and Availability Storage (PAS) platform to capture and dedupe data before moving it to the cloud. Customers, primarily small-to-medium businesses (SMBs), can then recover data from the cloud after a disaster, which can be anything from the accidental deletion of a file to a data corruption problem, to a full-on company disaster such as a fire or other event that destroys the data center. Because data is deduped before being stored, Adams said, backup times are greatly reduced, and storage is used much more efficiently compared to the brute force tape backup of entire databases that is typical in companies.

The recovery story, however, was less clear. Wikibon CTO David Floyer in particular criticized the argument that this could replace tape particularly for large databases such as those associated with Microsoft Exchange or with ERP systems. He argued that given available network speeds, recovering such a database would take much longer than the time required to have a tape backup shipped from a remote vault and then mounted and the data loaded when the entire database had to be restored.

Adams countered this with Lighthouse’s premium service, which will provide a client with access to its data/application directly from the cloud as a temporary SaaS service while the data is being transmitted and the customer’s system restarted. This has some obvious advantages, particularly in the case of a major fire or other disaster that destroys the company infrastructure itself. It provides very flexible access, supporting work-from-home or remote temporary sites anywhere, allowing a business to reestablish its basic functions quickly even in the event of a regional disaster, presuming that key business staff members are available. It also frees IT staff to deal with the rebuilding of physical infrastructure.

However, this premium service comes at a premium price. Whether it is worth that price, Wikibon members agreed, depends entirely on the nature and situation of the business itself. If it is a business that can continue to operate while, for instance, it is seeking a new headquarters – for instance a consultancy or other business that provides services at customer sites – then this could be a valuable temporary solution. If, on the other hand, its basic business depends on the physical site – for instance a small retailer – then this probably would not be worth the extra cost.

Tape, meanwhile, remains the inexpensive solution. It is also a strong solution for meeting legal requirements for archiving when it is stored with a third-party like Iron Mountain that can certify that the tape has not been accessed or altered since it was placed in the vault. Online storage may not be accepted by courts for this because the data is accessible, and therefore could be altered, through the Internet.

Wikibon members agreed that companies that do subscribe to an online data backup service should in most cases opt for the premium service as that definitely changes the complexion of the recovery situation. However, they should get clear guarantees concerning how long it would take to make their data and applications available in an emergency and should test that to be sure the vendor can meet its promises in a real disaster.

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The next Peer Incite, which is a free webinar available either as a conference audio call or one-way video feed on SiliconAngle.tv, will be Tuesday, April 10 at 12:00 P.M. EDST (9:00 A.M. PDST). The subject is “Creating a Zero Data Loss Environment.”