The real key here being that a DR is a much different deal than a normal
day-to-day restore.  The goal is to get a business back up and running with
a DR plan.  In many cases a couple of days old is probably good  (not ideal,
but good), while day-to-day needs require very up-to-date information.

You can have both with *SM.  You should carefully design your DR Plan to
meet the goals and requirements of your business.  This is a non-trivial
task, but the better job you do up front, the better job will be done during
the disaster.  Worst case a non-collocated copy storage pool and a daily
database backup will offer adequate protection: you will be able to restore
any of the data being backed up within your environment.  The variable is
time: will you have enough of it?  Data will become spread over many tapes,
many tape mounts will be required to recover your data.  Is this a problem?
Perhaps.  It's a problem if the elapsed time to recover you data is longer
than you have.  If you KNOW you have this problem (emphasis on KNOW), then
you may want to add collocation or Rapid Recovery to some of your more
critical restores.

Generally speaking, you should try to have your DR site resemble your actual
site as much as possible, especially regarding robotics.  If you have a very
fast library on-site, have one at the DR site.  Remember, it's only money.
If your business goes out of business in the interim, what have you really
saved?

Kelly J. Lipp
Storage Solutions Specialists, Inc.
PO Box 51313
Colorado Springs CO 80919
(719)531-5926
Fax: (719)260-5991
www.storsol.com
lipp AT storsol DOT com