>A "little" off the subject, and I already heard Richard Simms view on not
>having a second copy...  but what are most shops doing with respect to a second
>copy.
>I'm in a pretty large shop and upper management, in a cost savings effort,
>wants us to turn off the creation of a second tape copy.  I'm not too
>comfortable with the idea.  What are "your" thoughts?

Upper management is going for "Economy at any expense" if the data has value to
the running of the company, as they are gambling against the fairly high
probability that some tapes or writing sessions will have problems.
Try to interest them in two alternatives (and make points for yourself!):
 - The use of cheaper streaming drives for the copy storage pool.
   Backup Stgpool is a great streamer: a nearly ideal case for inexpensively
   making a surity copy of the primary data.  In that copy storage pools are
   usually non-collocated, it's feasible to employ a manual-load drive and
   save that much more money over a small library, as long as you can manage
   loose tape storage.  A cheap, used AIT or LTO drive and some tapes won't
   cost that much, and will let everyone sleep better at night.
 - Look into electronic vaulting.  You may be able to accomplish offsite
   protection and creation of a surity copy in one swell foop.

     Richard Sims, BU