Index Engines Offers a Solution to the Legacy Backup Tape Dilemma

- Jim McGann, VP of Information Discovery, Index Engines (http://www.indexengines.com/), says:

IT professionals regularly struggle with the dilemma of having stacks of legacy backup tapes and ask the question, “Do we hold onto them or not?” Many companies do not have an established policy in place to purge the tapes after they have outlived their disaster recovery purpose, so the tapes just pile up.  The obvious solution: destroy or recycle them.  However, it’s much more complex than that, and due to compliance and legal requirements, IT departments are taking a closer look at these tapes, to eliminate their associated risks while still keeping what is needed.

Two of the most obvious and primary concerns of legacy backup tapes are the importance of their content and the security of that content.  Lying around, these tapes have the potential to pose security risks and thus possess inherent liability. That’s the problem, and now Index Engines has created the solution.

Index Engines, a New Jersey-based enterprise  information discovery company, recently introduced a free “Data Assessment Program for Backup Tapes.” This new program provides a map of all your data on backup tapes, such as unmanaged pst’s and ex-employee files, to better understand the user environment, help establish appropriate policies and promote defensible deletion of irrelevant content.   Qualified enterprise participants in the Data Assessment Program are given the opportunity to process up to five tapes, which will be fully indexed and a report of the content will be generated using Index Engines’ comprehensive enterprise reporting.     

Index Engines has developed an innovative and automated method for data mapping that directly indexes and analyzes backup tapes without the requirement of original software or restoration processes.  This data mapping approach allows users to benchmark the sensitivity of data as well as develop an information governance plan.

The Data Assessment Program demonstrates a unique way to deal with the piles of legacy tapes that have stacked up over the years.  So when it is time for a little office cleaning — or a lot — don’t be alarmed. If you have properly assessed your data, decisions on what can be archived and what can be defensibly deleted can be made confidently to reduce risk and eliminate stacks of unneeded tapes

About the Author

Jim McGann is the eDiscovery expert and VP of Information Discovery for Index Engines (www.indexengines.com). Based in New Jersey, Index Engines’ patented discovery platform provides corporate and legal clients with comprehensive insight into their data to simplify information discovery, classification and management. Email Jim at jim.mcgann@indexengines.com.