Frequently Asked Questions

Your data is one of your most important assets and its correct management will have a material impact on your organization’s performance. For some industries, data presents lucrative revenue opportunities, eg. Oil and Gas sector, Media and Entertainment, Health and Life Sciences. For others like Corporates and Financial Institutions, it can efficiently aid compliance requirements and reduce risk exposure. No matter your industry, the overall benefits include the decreasing cost of cloud storage, the elimination of data loss, faster access to your data and increased utility of data as it can be connected to new applications.

Tape Ark has built a scalable technology stack. We can ingest one tape or one million tapes to the cloud. Volume is our sweet spot, but smaller amounts are more than welcome. We move data fast and en masse – no matter the Tape Media Format or Data Formats

Tape Ark’s scalable technology stack can efficiently migrate petabytes of data, so there really is no restriction on the volume. Our purpose is to liberate the world’s largest collections of data from tape, and these include projects that have more than 500 petabytes.

Getting started is easy. Tape Ark’s process is designed so that we do all the heavy lifting for you. We can manage the end-to-end process from warehouse extraction through to data destruction. We’ll keep you informed across all the critical stages, so you know exactly where your data is at all times.

Yes. Once all of your data is no longer required on tape there is no need to maintain your hardware or any non-necessary software. It is critical you consider taking the cost of maintenance of this software and hardware into account when reviewing your cost of ownership (TCO) for tape to cloud migration vs just keeping your on-premise tape systems.

One of the most exciting opportunities available to organizations who ingest their data to the cloud is the capability to use ML and AI to harness new insights from your tape bound data. At the heart of predictive analytics stands historical context, and that historical context can be found on the legacy tapes of companies around the world. Whether it be blood results, seismic data from earthquakes or weather patterns, the second largest collection of data in the world currently resides on tapes. Data-starved ML and AI applications around the world could use that data to improve their models, and this is just one of the many possible uses.

Tape Ark’s unique Tape Media Audit is a comprehensive and valuable part of the first stage process because it gives organizations the insight they need to make critical decisions about their cloud migration strategy and how best to manage their migrated data to reduce costs and get the most out of the content. Companies experiencing issues surrounding the data retention of mixed content can be provided with significant detailed information about each tapes’ content that can enable critical decision making prior to embarking on the final stage of ingest. Tape Ark’s Tape Media Audit is one of our key differentiators and has demonstrated significant value to customers who use our service prior to cloud migration.

Customers often recognize there is a percentage of their collection that they actually don’t know enough about to make a decision towards its value to the organization. The Tape Media Audit service is both rapid and cost effective and the information provided has been used to save time and resources for countless companies. The Tape Media Audit provides insights into backup format types, data duplication, the size and content of each tape and the expected cloud footprint.

Tape Ark’s Tape Media Audit is customized based on the size and complexity of the tape media collection. As a base it includes a photograph of each tape and all of its label information converted to text, as well as the breakdown of media types and backup formats. We also identify tape’s likely to suffer from deterioration, the expected data footprint of the content once extracted, and an assessment of duplicate data to be removed prior to ingest. Depending on the scope, a final report and/or a series of recommendations and next steps to efficiently ingest the data to the cloud and relevant storage tiers is provided.

In our experience, no more than five years from writing the tapes. It is highly likely that during that five year period that new tape drives and software will have been adopted by the organization and this could lead to tapes being orphaned and inaccessible by modern systems.

In particular any tape that is greater than five years old needs to be considered a candidate for migration. However, just about any tape that is greater than 10 years old will start to show signs of potential data loss. A key test for organizations with massive tape collections is to review whether or not the tape drives that wrote the tapes are still in production. If they are not in production, then the tapes are vulnerable to being orphaned and not having access to the tape drives that created them. Tape Ark’s Comprehensive Media Audit can evaluate your collection and recommend an approach to migrate at risk tape media.

The tapes that are at most risk are 9 track tapes, 8 mm Exabytes, 4mm DATS, DLT and SuperDLT tapes, and LTO1 through LTO3 tapes (amongst others). Any organization that no longer has the drives capable of reading the tapes in their collection should act quickly to migrate their content.

As specialists in tape backup and restore solutions, the team at Tape Ark has the expertise and skills to handle tapes created with almost any format encapsulation. We have you the right data reformatting and tape drives to get the job done, irrespective of the format of your tapes. The wide range of tape media formats we handle can be found at Tape Media Formats.

There are two material risks. Firstly, data loss and its inherent value within the organization eg. one of a kind data or data having been retained for compliance. Secondly, orphaned data – data sitting on tape with no way to access the data as the tape drives are obsolete. In both scenarios, the costs to the company can be significant.

Tape Ark has extensive experience and proprietary processes for recovering data from deteriorated media. We have completed work on tapes from the late 1960’s to present day and know how to handle tapes that are broken, suffering from Stiction, have oxide loss, are reverse wound, etc. It is important that you have tape media and data format experts involved when restoring data from legacy tape media otherwise you risk data loss occurring.

Yes. Tape Ark data experts can format conversion from older formats on a daily basis using its own proprietary format conversion software.

Tape Ark can restore a wide range of formats. You can find a complete list in Data Formats.

Tape Ark uses its proprietary conversion software to convert formats from a wide range of vintages and software providers. You can find a complete list in Data Formats.

As a means of pure data preservation, tapes can be copied bit for bit into your preferred cloud platform and left in their original format without any conversion being undertaken. Migrating bit for bit without any format decapsulation is a simple and effective way to ensure that your data sitting on your tape collection is preserved for future use. Any format conversion can be done at a later data en masse using various cloud technologies. Even though a tape is potentially still encapsulated in its backup format, some of these datasets can still be searched without the need for conversion.

Tape Ark can manage tapes that are compressed and/or encrypted. There are different types of hardware and software encryption in the backup industry. Provided that the organization still has access to the decryption keys, then access to the data is straightforward where it has been encrypted. Compression is typically done at the drive level, although some compression from software applications can also be present.

In fact, migration for the purpose of applying analytics, AI and ML is one of the leading reasons that we see from companies interested in ensuring they get maximum utility from their data.

Tape Ark is a technology partner for AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, and has also worked with other clouds including Wasabi and Backblaze to name a few.

Links to the pages of the top 5 clouds are below:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) – https://aws.amazon.com/

Microsoft Azure (Azure) – https://azure.microsoft.com/

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) – https://cloud.google.com/

Wasabi Cloud – https://wasabi.com/

Backblaze – https://www.backblaze.com/

Tape Ark is cloud agnostic – this means we work with all the major public cloud platforms in the interests of our customers. As some cloud platforms have tools better suited to solve customer problems, we are happy to work with you to make the best decision for your data.

Tape Ark believes that the customer should be given the choice of cloud platform that best suits their use case. Tape Ark is cloud agnostic and we are a technology partner for the world’s leading cloud platforms; AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

Absolutely! We have great relationships with all the major public cloud platform providers across the globe. We work in the interests of our customers first. Based on your project requirements and outcomes, Tape Ark can help you to accurately identify your cloud footprint through our Comprehensive Media Audit and advise how best to evaluate a suitable cloud provider.

When you’re looking at the comparisons between the two, it’s important you evaluate how your organization interacts with your data now and is expected to in the future. Key things to consider include; speed of data access, management overheads, scalability, ability to add modern features such as advanced search and AI, data durability, speed of recovery and disaster response, automatic technology refresh, and future proofing. Tape Ark can assist you develop a business case so that it is clear and informed of the benefits and risks associated with remaining with your current storage approach or moving your data.

If you take the complete total cost of ownership (TCO) of leaving your tapes in an offside storage vault, compared to migrating your data bound tape to the cloud, then removing the hardware from your data center and the maintenance and support costs, cloud storage in many cases is far cheaper. Importantly, once your data is no longer sitting in physical form, on a tape, the data is not at risk of deterioration and never needs to be migrated to other media as this is managed seamlessly by the cloud platform. So when considering the cost of the cloud one should also take into consideration the future costs (savings) of tape that have been alleviated as a result of using the cloud.

• The Tape Ark Comprehensive Media Audit helps customers understand their collections before they liberate them into the cloud.   This ensures the right data is in the right place, and that attention and care in the virtualization process are matched to your collection’s vulnerabilities.
• Time to Insight.  The rapid tape ingest system developed by Tape Ark allows customers to move multi-petabyte collections into AWS –  fast.
• The Tape Ark Virtualization workflow preserves every aspect of the tapes that are virtualized – right down to the label that was on the physical tape. This makes the service perfect for legal matters, corporate governance, and meeting legislative requirements.
• The high level of quality control and the underlying view that preservation is key and it creates quality high-value outcomes for its customers.
• Any format of tape and backup format (from TSM to TAR) can be ingested by Tape Ark – this ensures that even if you don’t know what you have in your collection, Tape Ark will be able to fill in the gaps.
• Combined with [Tape Ball], the Tape Ark service is now even more portable and robust, opening up many more options for clients than what existed before.
• Eliminate costs associated with scaling, managing, and maintaining physical tape infrastructure, onsite or offsite tape warehousing, and physical tape upgrades.
• Better storage durability, availability, and scalability than customers get with physical tapes.
• Easy and online virtual tape restore capability through an AWS Tape Gateway.

The concept of an ‘air gap’ was introduced by the LTO consortium and offsite tape storage industry. An air gap is a cyber security measure for securing a computer network by physically isolating it from other networks, such as the public internet or another unsecured local area network. It is a way to protect data stored on tape based storage systems, providing an air gap that is actively thwarting attempts by cybercriminals to compromise production systems, in those that would otherwise be vulnerable to ransomware attacks.

We believe that there are benefits to having your data disconnected from current networks. However, Air gapping diminishes productivity, reduces accessibility, it requires ongoing costs for implementation and maintenance and stifles innovation and progress. Organizations investing in tape media for long life storage is a bet against technological progress and risks their digital innovation programs not reaching their full potential.

A Virtual Tape Library is essentially made up of virtual tape drives, virtual tape slots (like those found in a robotic silo) and virtual tapes. Converting an on-premise physical tape backup system to a cloud based virtual tape repository can be done by using a VTL. It is both simple and extremely cost effective to use these systems to remove on premises infrastructure. In addition, it can save significant running costs on power, cooling and maintenance for typical physical hardware installations.

100% it can. A VTL can eliminate tape drives, tape libraries and robotics, plus the need to manage physical tapes within data centers. This can save companies on maintenance (both hardware and software), as well as the continued consumption of tape media through migration refreshes.

Tape Ark can virtualize any kind of tape media in any software environment no matter how old. You can find a complete list in Tape Formats.

Almost all contemporary backup and restore software applications will work with VTL technology. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a comprehensive virtual tape library subsystem that Tape Ark can configure and manage on behalf of customers. This allows customers to use an agnostic virtual tape library, meaning they will no longer be fixed to using any particular company’s VTL.  You can find a complete list here in Data Formats.

Not at this stage. Not all cloud providers offer a cloud native VTL solution. But thats okay, Tape Ark has an application for VTL emulation that will work on any cloud. AWS is the only cloud platform with a VTL subsystem inbuilt.

Virtualizing your tapes with Tape Ark is a simple process. After sending your tapes to us, Tape Ark will perform a Comprehensive Media Audit on the media to determine formats, compression, encryption and the total cloud footprint expected for the content. Once the ingest approach is agreed, Tape Ark moves each physical tape to the VTL using its mass ingest system. After ingest and quality checks are performed, account credentials are released to the customer to access their VTL.

Tape Ark has a range of both digital and physical security measures in place from building alarms to encryption of data in transfer and at rest. We have controls in place at each stage of the process to make sure your data stays in the right hands.  Learn more here in Data Protection.

Once we have completed your cloud ingest, all data is removed from our internal systems. No trace is left but what is now in the cloud.

Yes, Tape Ark holds certificates for both ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 27001:2013, the world’s best-known standards for international security management systems. Our accreditation with globally-recognized organizations such as JASANZ, UKAS, and INTERTEK SAI Global, are proof of our alignment with international standards. Our other certifications include Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus, which are testament to the safeguards we have against threats.

Tape Ark specializes in bulk data migration from storage management systems common within the broadcast industry. These include systems built around Stornext, SAM-FS, Xendata, DIVArchive, TSM, Atempo, SGL Flashnet and many others. Underlying data formats are often TAR or LTFS based, however are sometimes entirely proprietary; we specialize in the latter. Data tape formats in these systems are typically LTO or T10000D, and we handle these at massive scale, however, we will migrate any magnetic data tape format.

Tape Ark also has capacity for the digitalization of common broadcast formats such as the Betacam, DV, and HDCAM families, along with archival services we can provide for older formats such as Umatic, 1” and others.

Along with generating a cryptographic hash of each file, Tape Ark collects extensive technical metadata either during ingest or as part of the extraction process. This includes information such as codecs, duration, resolution, framerate, wrapper, tracks, encoding application, bitrate, etc. Other metadata, such as timecode, or descriptive attributes (e.g. language or program information) can also be extracted if they have been embedded in the file. We additionally will assist in linking files back to a master database/asset management system, which will usually hold the bulk of any descriptive or administrative metadata.

Yes. The Netflix on-demand streaming service streams out of the cloud just as Disney Plus, Stan, Amazon Prime, HBO, Hulu, and Sling do. If you are a broadcaster and not leveraging the cloud, we can help you get started quickly!

The two primary reasons we see media and entertainment companies migrating their content to the cloud is for accessibility and preservation. Firstly, with the growing demand for on-the-go streaming services and the need to have quick access to content, tape as a storage solution is simply no longer suitable. Secondly, the cloud prevents deterioration and loss of content. Many of the collections we see in this industry are large and contain tapes from many vintages. The cloud provides an excellent evergreen solution for media content.

Tape Ark can migrate almost any tape media format to the cloud including 9 track tapes, 8 mm Exabytes, 4mm DATS, DLT and SuperDLT tapes, 3590, 3480, 3592, and LTO1 through LTO8 tapes. For a full list visit Tape Formats and Data Formats

There are a number of benefits of hosting seismic data in the cloud. Moving data from tape to the cloud eliminates the need to maintain legacy hardware and software because the cloud is an evergreen archiving solution, therefore capital costs are eliminated. The cloud also provides easy and fast access to the data on a global scale within a few seconds. One of the most profound benefits today is that the cloud offers a wide variety of cloud-enabled artificial intelligence and machine learning tools that can be seamlessly applied to gain new insights faster, reducing ‘time to insight’ and in a scalable and automated way that can never be achieved from tape.

Almost all major oil companies around the world are now embarking on a journey to migrate their massive quantities of data to the cloud. By utilizing Tape Ark’s unique Tape Media Audit service, oil companies can significantly reduce the cost of their cloud ingest and eliminate duplicates and other unwanted material from their collections prior to ingest.

From oil and gas data, Tape Ark captures a wide range of metadata of all seismic and well formats and creates JSON manifest files that can be loaded into the cloud. With this data, these manifest files can be used to join the content to GIS platforms or other internal databases within the oil company. Because the data all reside on disk when it is in the cloud, multiple passes of the data to generate and add metadata are simple and cost-effective. Building a detailed metadata system for your seismic data is simple and can be redone at any time should you find you wish to enhance the metadata.

Tape Ark captures a wide range of metadata from oil and gas related content. For seismic data, this includes survey name, line name, FFID, shot point, CDP, processing types, location information, header details, file sizes, ownership information, and many others. For well data, it includes well log types, curves, depth information, etc.  For further details read our Seismic Metadata Collection Page.

Absolutely. Data stored in the cloud is far faster to access than it is from tape. It is not uncommon for access to be cut from several months to several minutes for data that has been previously stored on complex media.

Today, not many government bodies take electronics submission from the cloud. However, it is expected that during the year 2021 through 2025 most governments will shift to receiving content directly via a cloud submission. With the advent of the OSDU platform, oil companies will easily be able to perform their government’s submissions efficiently.

Yes. Tape Ark can ingest data directly to the OSDU platform for oil companies providing all manifest files required by the platform. Tape Ark is a Gold Member of OSDU.

Tape Ark can ingest data directly to SLB Prosource, Osokey, OSDU, and PPDM compliant databases, providing all manifest files required by the platform in .JSON, Sidecar, .CSV, etc formats.

Tape Ark can handle almost all tape formats and software formats from the backup and recovery industry. These include BackupExec, NetBackup, Tivoli Storage Manager, Commvault, ArcServe, LTFS, IBM Spectrum protect, and basic formats like TAR and CPIO. A complete list of tape formats can be found at Tape Formats.

For companies that are maintaining numerous legacy systems, because they have not found an alternative way to store their data, Tape Ark has created several services, particularly for old tapes, that provide companies with maximum flexibility, cost-effectiveness and allows for businesses to focus on today’s problems, not yesterday’s.

Tape Ark can gather large volumes of metadata and can customize that capture to suit the needs of its customers. Whether it be simple things like file names, file size, and directory path, or more complex things, like the actual content of files, spreadsheets, and email databases we have a variety of suitable solutions. Tape Ark can do this at speed and scale leveraging Lambda functions running in the cloud as data is transferred to the cloud.

Tape Ark’s role in the management of health-related data does not allow it to be HIPAA certified.  However, in our role as a storage provider of your patient data, Tape Ark meets the requirements to be able to execute a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with your company.

Yes, Tape Ark enters into Business Associate Agreements (BAA’s) routinely once the BAA has been vetted by our legal department.

Yes – Tape Ark has agreements with the main cloud provider platform that we store your content on which comply with the HIPAA legislation.

Tape Ark is open to working with any public sector entity that requires a solution to their legacy tape related problems.  Our global client base in the public sector includes agencies from the UK, Australia, India and the United States.  Among these are agencies dealing in health care, agriculture, meteorology, oil and gas and minerals exploration, offshore water management, transportation, and more.

Yes, Tape Ark has existing contracts with agencies in India, Australia, the United States, the UK, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

 Yes, Tape Ark has a self-attestation of PCI compliance, is ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified, UKAS, Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus and works on behalf of a range of banks and insurance providers worldwide.

Yes, Tape Ark manages the restore capability of one of the largest insurance providers in the United States.  We provide data management, data retention management, and long term restore capabilities from legacy tape systems to help insurance providers meet their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) responsibilities for legacy data.

In summary, legacy tape management is a comprehensive approach to managing and preserving data stored on older tape formats, ensuring compliance, accessibility, and security while considering the transition to more modern storage solutions where appropriate.  It covers areas including:

• Retention and Access: It involves determining which data stored on legacy tapes needs to be retained for compliance or archival purposes and ensuring that this data remains accessible despite changes in technology.
• Migration: Legacy tape management often includes strategies for migrating data from obsolete tape formats to newer storage solutions, such as cloud storage or modern tape formats that offer increased capacity and reliability.
• Maintenance and Preservation: It encompasses efforts to maintain the physical integrity of legacy tapes, which may involve storing them in climate-controlled environments to prevent deterioration over time.
• Documentation and Inventory: Legacy tape management requires maintaining accurate documentation and inventory of tapes, including metadata such as creation dates, contents, and retention policies.
• Compliance and Legal Considerations: It addresses compliance with legal and regulatory requirements related to data retention, ensuring that data stored on legacy tapes meets relevant standards and can be accessed if needed for audits or legal proceedings.
• Cost Considerations: Legacy tape management involves assessing the ongoing costs associated with maintaining and managing older tape technologies versus the potential cost savings or efficiency gains from migrating to newer storage solutions.
• Security: It includes implementing security measures to protect data stored on legacy tapes from unauthorized access or breaches, especially as older tape technologies may lack modern encryption or access controls.
• Integration with Modern Systems: Legacy tape management strategies often involve integrating data stored on older tapes with modern IT infrastructure and applications, ensuring compatibility and interoperability.
• Risk Mitigation: It focuses on mitigating risks associated with relying on outdated technology for critical data storage, including developing contingency plans for data recovery and disaster recovery scenarios.

Data retention guidelines are policies and practices that organizations follow to manage the retention and disposal of data in a manner that aligns with legal, regulatory, and operational requirements. These guidelines help ensure that data is kept for as long as necessary for its intended purpose, while also minimizing risks associated with data breaches, privacy violations, and storage costs. Here are some key aspects of data retention guidelines:

1. Legal and Regulatory Requirements: Different jurisdictions and industries have specific laws and regulations governing how long certain types of data must be retained. These requirements may vary based on factors such as the type of data (e.g., financial, healthcare), the jurisdiction (e.g., GDPR in Europe, HIPAA in the US), and the industry (e.g., banking, healthcare).
2. Purpose of Data: Data retention guidelines should align with the purpose for which data was collected or created. Organizations should define and document the specific purposes for which different types of data are retained to ensure compliance and efficient management.
3. Retention Periods: Guidelines specify the minimum and maximum periods for which data should be retained based on legal requirements, business needs, and operational considerations. This includes considering factors such as statute of limitations for legal actions, auditing requirements, historical analysis, and customer service obligations.
4. Data Categories: Guidelines typically categorize data based on sensitivity, importance, and regulatory requirements. This helps prioritize retention efforts and ensure appropriate measures are taken to secure and manage different types of data.
5. Storage and Accessibility: Guidelines address how data should be stored during its retention period, including requirements for encryption, backup, and accessibility. They also specify procedures for retrieving and disposing of data securely when it reaches the end of its retention period.
6. Compliance Audits and Monitoring: Organizations must periodically audit and monitor their adherence to data retention guidelines to ensure ongoing compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. This includes documenting retention schedules, data access logs, and disposal procedures.
7. Data Destruction: Guidelines include procedures for securely disposing of data at the end of its retention period or when it is no longer needed. Secure data destruction methods may include shredding physical documents, wiping digital storage media, or using specialized data destruction services.
8. Employee Training and Awareness: Organizations should provide training and awareness programs to employees regarding data retention guidelines, emphasizing the importance of compliance, data security, and privacy protection.
9. International Considerations: For multinational organizations, data retention guidelines must consider cross-border data transfer regulations and international data protection laws to ensure compliance when storing or processing data across different jurisdictions.
10. Updates and Reviews: Data retention guidelines should be reviewed and updated regularly to reflect changes in laws, regulations, business practices, and technology advancements that may impact data management and retention policies.

Overall, effective data retention guidelines are essential for organizations to manage data responsibly, protect privacy, comply with legal requirements, and optimize storage and operational efficiency.

Yes, We can be purchased on the main marketplaces:

Azure – Tape Ark can be purchased on Azure Marketplace

AWS – Tape Ark can be purchased on AWS Marketplace

There are a number of benefits when purchasing through a cloud marketplace, these include:

Decrease transaction friction with customized terms and flexible payment options including private offers.

Standardized License Terms makes it easy to purchase.

Vendor insights allow purchasers to understand thier supplier better.