Jason Buffington .com

  • Enterprise data protection strategy requires evolution

    Most organizations supplement traditional backup with some combination of snapshots, replication and archiving to achieve more comprehensive data protection. They are using what we at ESG refer to as the Spectrum of Data Protection. Innovative data protection vendors, meanwhile, are constantly reacting to the changing IT landscape in their attempts to give their customers and…

  • Tape capacity, technology continue to advance

    Though some folks mistakenly view tape as an outdated technology — thanks in no small part to the fact that disk companies keep predicting its demise — there’s no denying its importance at the table of backup products. A recent Enterprise Strategy Group report indicates that 56% of organizations are still using tape. Perhaps not…

  • Enterprise data protection strategy needs archive, backup

    Anyone who truly requires long-term data retention probably already understands the realities of what modern tape offers — and not the marketing fear, uncertainty and doubt from 20 years ago. Which is why, with its speed, error-protection, durability, functionality (e.g., Linear Tape File System) and economics, tape continues to earn a place in the enterprise…

  • Now’s the time to virtualize backup deduplication

    With so much great work being done in converged infrastructure and hyper-converged appliances, many users are getting to the point that the only boxes with blinky lights that they want to see on their floor are those converged infrastructure (CI)/hyper-converged appliance (HC) platforms, since everything else is running inside those bundles. But one of the…

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  • Mix and match data protection methods

    There’s a debate going on about data protection methods right now, and it centers on “disk, tape or cloud.” Of course, cloud is a delivery mechanism, not a medium, and cloud providers are using disk and near-line tape, too. But what kinds of media and architectures are organizations really using for backup? According to ESG…

  • Are cloud storage gateways the new virtual tape library?

    There are a myriad of data protection appliances available, many of which defy the early definition of a purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA). Today, there are at least four types of data protection appliances: (Real) backup appliances: Includes both the backup engine and some amount of storage. Storage/Deduplication appliances: Target devices that are fed by backup/archive…