The 3-2-1-1 Rule of Data Protection
No, that’s not a typo. The best practices around data protection have changed, and that second “1” is critical for anyone working in IT. So what’s the extra “1” all about?
The 3-2-1 rule of data protection has been a long time rule in the industry:
- 3 copies of your data, stored on
- 2 different types of storage, with at least
- 1 copy stored offsite
With one of our technology partners here in the industry, Veeam, we are both starting to talk about the additional “one” – one copy of your data needs to be stored offLINE. The reason for keeping one copy offline is so that copy is protected against ransomware and malware attacks.
And tape is a perfect storage medium for this – the nature of LTO tape technology means that data is stored “offline” i.e data that is stored on tapes, even tapes kept in the tape library, are not connected to any device that is on the network:
In fact, a recently authored a piece in Data Center Knowledge that explains how customers are increasingly using the cloud for “offsite” storage – but continue to use tape because of its offline properties.
And for those Veeam users who are looking to follow this “3-2-1-1” best practice, there’s even better news. Quantum has just released a
converged tape appliance for Veeam, which makes it fast and easy to create tape in a Veeam environment for offline protection. You can check out more details here, and let me know what you think about the new 3-2-1-1 rule!
Contact your BackupWorks.com Account Rep Today at
866 801 2944 and ask about offline storage with Quantum and Veeam.