14 December 2010
Vaulting, or off-site data protection, is a strategy of sending critical data away from the main site (or off-site) in anticipation of disasters such as fire, floods or typhoons which might destroy these data. Financial institutions such as banks and lending firms, corporations and industries, by the very sensitive nature of the data they handle daily, must have some form of remote backup system as part of a long-term disaster recovery plan.
Data can be transported physically in the form of magnetic tapes or as optical storage media such as discs and flash drives. Data can also be sent electronically through a remote backup server, a process known as electronic vaulting or e-vaulting. These storage media are then kept securely in storage vaults.
Commercial off-site data vaults fall into 3 categories: underground vaults, free-standing vaults and insulated chambers.
Data can be sent electronically through a remote backup server, a process known as e-vaulting
Underground Vaults
are usually defunct military (dating back to the cold war era) or communications facilities which are converted into off-site data storage vaults. Unused mines can also be used for this purpose.
Free-standing vaults
are commercial standing vaults purposely built to store data securely. Reputable companies manufacture fire-proof data vaults and fire-proof media cabinets and safes.
Insulated chambers
are especially-designed rooms installed within record center buildings. These are rooms made of special materials with a temperature and humidity signature conducive to long-term preservation of data integrity.
Many organisations manage their own remote or off-site backup but some have entrusted their off-site backup data in the hands of third-party remote backup providers who specialize in this area.
The first documented commercial remote backup system was developed in the 1980’s by Rob Cosgrove, founder and CEO of Remote Backup Systems. A maternity hospital in Memphis, Tennessee was one of his clients and he employed scripts and FTP to send the hospital’s data via telephone modems to an off-site computer. A lightening storm struck the prenatal unit’s server and all critical data was lost. Cosgrove was able, with his experimental remote backup system, to recover every single byte of data in a matter of 30 minutes. This first showcase of data backup and recovery ignited the spark which soon lit the industry of remote data backup services.
From the dotcom boom of the 1990’s to today, there has been an exponential rise in the number of online providers of data backup services. From the looks of it, there is no stopping the progress that can be seen in the field of data backup in the years to come.
