Over the last several years, many organizations have at least partially transitioned from writing backups to local tape libraries to creating cloud-based backups. One of the primary obstacles that organizations may encounter along the way is that many of the major backup applications are designed to either work with virtual tape libraries or with proprietary, vendor-specific cloud storage. More recently however, some of the major public cloud providers have begun offering cloud-based virtual tape library services. These services help to bridge the gap between backup software and cloud storage, thereby making it much easier to write backups to the cloud while continuing to use existing backup software. This Drill Down examines the practicality of using a cloud-based virtual tape library service, as well as some of the pros and cons of doing so.
[Originally posted on TechTarget as a recurring columnist]