Ransomware is the first type of malware that actually generates revenue for the attacker. Companies hit by a ransomware attack are forced to pay a ransom – anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars –to unlock files that have been maliciously encrypted. Ransoms can range from $5,000 to $50,000 and beyond depending on the size of the company. Basically, it’s pay up, or face chaos. Or don’t pay up, and face chaos anyway. Once your files are infected, you could spend...

This article is part of a series examining the value of tape in the era of cloud and object storage. In my last few posts, I considered the...

In my last article, I compared the total cost of ownership for tape to that of the private cloud solutions, and examined why the challenges...

In my last article, I compared the total cost of ownership for tape to that of the public cloud, in particular taking into account the...

This article is part of a series examining the value of tape in the era of cloud and object storage. I concluded my last entry by stating that...

This article is part 2 in a series looking at the role of tape in the zettabyte era.

In my opinion, and with over twenty years’ experience in the data protection industry, today’s storage market resembles the aviation industry. If all we needed to do was fly from A to B as quickly as possible, only one type of aircraft would ever be required. In reality, there are so many different use cases and applications for air transport that we have developed flying machines of all...

One of the more challenging aspects of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for IT groups responsible for backup and archiving, concerns the data subject rights articulated in Chapter 3: in particular, Article 17, the right to erasure, often referred to as the “right to be forgotten”.

Before I discuss this topic further, I want to remind you that I’m a storage professional not a lawyer, so although I feel relatively well-informed to discuss this subject,...

Tape is one of the most durable types of storage media, both in terms of its physical characteristics and also its longevity as a technology: few things outlast, and few things have outlasted, tape.

Many people assume that alternative technologies, especially the Cloud, are becoming dominant in areas that were formerly the preserve of tape - in particular, backup, archiving and disaster recovery. I think this is because the most prominent cloud services, Amazon Web Service, Microsoft...

The subject of this article was inspired by an event I attended as part of this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona: the Digital Future Society seminar in conjunction with the DFS Think Tank. 

The goal of the DFS project in its own words are:

“To build an inclusive, equitable and sustainable future in the digital era. To this end, DFS engages experts, policymakers, civic organisations and entrepreneurs to explore, experiment and exchange knowledge abot...

Building the case for LTO tape storage to weather coming storms and the data tsunami, creating more sustainable archival storage when and where it's needed most.

It’s pretty much universally accepted that climate change is accelerating both the frequency and ferocity of natural disasters and extreme weather events. Hurricane Michael, the storm that battered the southern United States during October 2018, was one of the most powerful events on record after rapidly growing in...