Stylish vs. Reliable: The Age-Old Debate

Fresh out of college, I had big dreams about both my career and my ride. Back then I had a used Honda Accord. It did the trick of getting me from Point A to Point B, was reliable and got great gas mileage. The car had just one drawback: It was a Honda Accord.

I wanted a sports car with two doors and chrome rims that could hit 60 miles per hour in the blink of an eye. I was a kid only thinking about the superficial. It took some time, but I finally got that dream car.

And then everything changed. The maintenance bills started rolling in (thanks, Boston potholes), I settled down and started a family. Having twins can certainly change your perspective, not to mention your transportation needs. So back to the Accord and its proven reliability we went.

This story got me thinking about data protection and how enterprise needs are suddenly changing. It seems that many companies are now giving up the reliability of tape-based data backup strategies (the Accord) in favor of the new, flashier option that is the cloud (the sports car).

Tape is a proven, inexpensive and reliable solution. It may not be as trendy as today’s cloud-based offerings, but as big data continues to get bigger and bigger, we need these cost-effective and reliable strategies to help us store the massive amounts of data we are producing. Time and again, tape storage has proven it can fill that role.

Still, companies are looking elsewhere for data protection because hosted technologies are perceived as more modern and easier to maintain. But they can’t deliver the same level of reliability and cost that you get with a tape-based solution.

So why not have both? What I didn’t mention above is that I still have a sports car, only now it’s not the family’s primary mode of transportation. When hauling the kids around we all jump into the Accord, load up the trunk and we’re on our way. When it’s just me, maybe looking to turn a few heads, I take the sports car out for a spin.

It can be the same with data backup. You can combine the two to satisfy all of the company’s needs. Businesses can turn to the more traditional and reliable offsite tape storage for long-term archiving, but also have the cloud to handle data recoveries that require a quick turnaround.

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• Where Do You Park Your Backup Data?
• The Cloud: Part of Your Enterprise Backup Team?
• Data Backup and Recovery Is Now a Balancing Act
• Is a Cloud-Based Data Storage Service on Your Company’s Horizon?
• The Cloud: Will It Rise to the Occasion When You Need It Most?
• Should You Chase the Cloud?