What Media Vaulting Means in the Digital Age? (Free Downloadable Guide)

In the fast-paced digital era, data is one of the most valuable assets held by businesses. Approximately 70% of businesses claim most or all of their decisions are made by data, but how do you protect this valuable asset from others? This is why media vaulting is critical to your data protection architecture.

Moreover, businesses must worry about increasing compliance demands. Whether it’s the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or industry-specific legislation, companies must provide minimum protections for their data, especially for their customers. Adapting to these new demands means thinking outside the box, and this is where offsite tape storage & vaulting come in.

If you want to learn about guaranteeing compliance and enhancing security, here’s everything you must know.

What is Tape or Media Vaulting?

Media vaulting moves your critical data onto hard drives or backup tapes to a secure vault in an offsite facility. Data is typically stored on various types of storage media, but the most common options are RDX and magnetic tape.

Although many businesses may balk at relying on technology originating in the 1960s, the fact it’s a legacy technology helps to overcome many of the cyber risks associated with other platforms, like the cloud.

And it’s a growing trend, with the global tape storage market expected to grow at 12.3% from today until 2028. Offsite tape storage services provide all of the security protocols necessary to protect your data, including:

  • 24/7 manned facilities.
  • Access controls, such as keys and biometrics.
  • Climate control to protect the integrity of your tapes.
  • Complete staff background checks.
  • Clear paper trails and real-time tracking when data is in transit.

Offsite tape storage offers cutting-edge security to protect your business if a disaster occurs. Typically, offsite backup tape storage is best used for long-term backups, such as servers, and for maintaining your archives.

How Has Offsite Tape Vaulting Evolved in the B2B Space?

Magnetic tape has been a storage method since the 1960s, but believing everything has stayed the same is a serious oversight. With B2B organizations changing over the decades, so too have offsite tape vaulting services. So, what are the main trends impacting media vaulting to get it ready for the contemporary business landscape?

  • Moving to Hybrid Solutions – Businesses have adopted hybrid solutions to provide the appropriate access for different data types. These days, tape storage is often integrated with other data storage solutions, including the cloud.
  • Upgraded Security – Data is the most precious asset businesses hold, which is why media vaulting providers have bolstered their security measures. This change isn’t purely a demand from the business community but imposed by tightening data protection regulations worldwide.
  • Automation Technologies – Many vaulting providers have even integrated automation technologies to make their services more relevant. For example, they have used automation to accelerate data backup and retrieval processes.
  • Added Encryption Technologies – Tape vaulting is effective because it remains an offline data storage solution. However, services need to go further. This is why many modern tapes and other storage media, complete with secret keys, include high-level encryption to protect the data held within should the worst happen.
  • Disaster Recovery Integration – Value-added services are also part of these companies, with some providing support in devising disaster management plans. In particular, the focus is on ensuring a quick recovery from critical data loss.
  • Sustainability – Approximately 80% of companies have internal environmental sustainability goals. The public is also concerned with what companies are doing for the planet. To that end, some providers have even offered more sustainable vaulting services.

At its heart, the concept of media vaulting has remained the same, but emerging technologies and changing business priorities have forced service providers to change. This is legacy technology reimagined for the modern age.

Why Use Tape Vaulting to Secure Proprietary Data?

Whether you should add this data security method to your existing architecture remains. Although the startup costs can be higher, this investment repays itself many times over. Businesses may choose to utilize tape vaulting because:

  • Cost-Effectiveness – Compared to other data solutions, vaulting is the cheapest option in the long term. This is especially true when scaling with larger amounts of data.
  • Longevity – The average magnetic tape can last 10 to 30 years, depending on the brand. Contrast this to hard drive lifespans, which last closer to three years.
  • Cyber Protection – Tapes are not connected to the Internet, meaning your data is immune to all cyber-attack vectors while in storage.
  • Physical Encryption – Tapes can be encrypted in various fashions. For example, many tapes come with secret keys known only to the tape’s owner, meaning even your storage provider could not access the data. Other tapes are protected with read-only encryption, meaning data cannot be altered, manipulated, or transferred.
  • Reliability – An innately low chance of corruption, error, and malfunction provides peace of mind that the data you leave will remain the same a generation from now.
  • High Capacity Storage – No other storage media can match the storage capacity of a tape. For example, an LTO-9 tape can support 45 TB of uncompressed data.

Unlike in the past, where it could take weeks to retrieve your data from a far-flung facility, most service providers have systems to streamline the delivery of tapes when needed. Plus, the costs have come down, meaning media vaulting is just as suitable for small businesses as larger ones.

What to Expect from Offsite Tape Vaulting Services

Every offsite backup tape storage facility will adopt a unique management process. In essence, the process is straightforward for businesses. Assess your needs, organize a pickup time, and your provider will handle the rest.

But how is your data protected throughout the process? Firstly, most storage providers will implement protocols to protect your tapes in transit, such as GPS-tracked vehicles and clear audit paper trails. This protects you from liability and proves you have met your compliance obligations.

Once your tapes arrive at the facility, they will be cataloged and stored in a climate-controlled unit. They may even be rotated to ensure the tapes remain in optimal condition. Some providers even offer online platforms where you can browse your inventory and request access. Remember, encryption means only you can access your data. Even the storage provider would not be able to access it. During this time, your compliance will be guaranteed. The security protocols surrounding magnetic tape storage are often based on those set down within different data protection regulations.

Again, this is another reason why more and more organizations turn toward these services. It streamlines their compliance and enables them to save money by outsourcing to a competent third party.

Set Up an Offsite Media Vault with Corodata

Elevating your data security protocols is a long-term investment in your business. The risk of critical data loss has soared, with 76% of IT leaders saying they had experienced severe data loss the previous year. While you cannot completely mitigate the chances of a cyber attack or natural disaster, a disaster recovery plan ensures your business can get back on track.

With a secure offsite media vault, you have that added protection. At Corodata, we support businesses in managing their data protection needs. To learn more about our media vaulting services, contact the team now.

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