Comprehensive Tape Media Audit

Comprehensive Media Audit

Not sure exactly what tapes you have in your collection, what they contain, or where to begin? Tape Ark’s unique Comprehensive Media Audit gives organizations accurate information about their true data volume, tape profile collection, and how best to start the cloud migration journey. The process is fast, affordable and insightful.

An easy first step that delivers value

We’ve engineered the first step for ease and convenience. Our customer-centric approach starts with understanding your data access objectives and working backwards from there. Many companies who have been using offsite warehousing to store their physical tape and media assets are now gravitating towards cloud-enabled options but are not sure how to handle the legacy tape collection they have. If this is the case for your company or organization, you will first want to know how much data you actually have.

A complete data footprint

A Comprehensive Media Audit will provide critical information that allows you to make informed decisions. You’ll know how much data you actually have and how much of your data may be duplicated, and you’ll also be able to triage your data migration based on the data value and usage requirements. Importantly, you will also know the exact volume of data to be ingested allowing you to appropriately budget and manage your cloud costs.

Data risk assessment

Tape Ark assesses the physical condition of your media, applying a risk profile to each media type based on several factors and variables. Each media type is assigned a rating on a scale of 1-10, with 1 meaning low risk of degradation, and 10 meaning very high risk. Tape Ark’s risk assessment methodology takes into account the following factors:

• the media manufacturer;
• the year of media manufacturing and the age of the media;
• end of life status and passes (the number of times tapes can safely pass over the drive heads before their condition deteriorates); and
• any known historical issues with the media and drives during the period of use.

This assessment highlights which tapes need urgent attention.

Depending on your organization’s objectives for your media collection, Tape Ark provides some recommendations on how best to minimize the risk of degradation. Tapes at risk of data loss can prevent your company from fulfilling its data retention policies – and that could mean some hefty fines.

Critical details about your tape media

During the audit, we confirm the exact type and quantity of media in your collection. The audit will identify critical information for a successful ingest including potential duplicate media, the age of the collection, at-risk media types susceptible to data loss, orphaning, and much more. All media are affixed with a QR Code and individually photographed across all angles to allow for the tracking and retrieval of individual tape media. The photographs are captured by loading the media into a dedicated cradle with mirrors to provide a 360 view of the media.

RFID tags

In collections of tapes where there is no known catalogue or database of what was written on the tapes, the RFID tag inside your LTO tapes is a rapid way to gather information about the tapes, without the need to read the tapes in a tape drive. The RFID tags help Tape Ark estimate the volume of data likely to be found on your tape media, enabling us to predict the total cloud footprint for customers planning a cloud migration. Tape Ark has designed a proprietary algorithm to calculate the estimated volume (+/-5%) of the data contained on the tape on the basis of the statistics found on the RFID tag. The tried-and-tested algorithm gives us a working figure very close to the actual volume.

Audit report

On completion of the audit, Tape Ark will provide you with a written report designed to inform management in your organization of the current state of your collection.  The report will provide insights into possible actions to take, details on projected cloud costs etc.