To me the problem is having the drives around and more importantly, the 
interfaces to the drives.  I think that probably the best bet is to plan on 
"archiving" a TSM server with a drive along with the media periodically.  Snap 
off the last database backup, restore it on the to be archived server (a good 
test in itself), and store the whole kit together.  If one needs to retrieve an 
archive, fire up the archived server, query the database to determine what tape 
is required, get it, retrieve the data and put the whole mess away.

The other way to do this would be to migrate the archived data to new tape 
media as you march through time.  I like this approach as that will have the 
double advantage of refreshing and verifying the data on those tapes.  One 
could shelve the media in the archive pools and do this on a very controller 
basis when the media changes.  Lots of data movement potentially, but it would 
become a nicely verified process that your auditors could look at to help 
ensure compliance.  It's one thing to say we're doing and quite another to show 
we're doing it.  Having the archive data more readily retrievable has obvious 
benefits as well.

Kelly Lipp
CTO
STORServer, Inc.
485-B Elkton Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
719-266-8777 x7105
www.storserver.com


-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Huebschman, George J.
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 2:25 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] LTO for long term archiving

Does anyone have 25 year old tape media or tape drives around?
Will you stil be able to use LTOx media in 25 years?

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Thomas Denier
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 4:11 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] LTO for long term archiving

I work for a large hospital. I have been asked to investigate possible
configurations for archiving something between a few hundred terabytes
and a petabyte of data for 25 years. This would be clinical records that
we need to keep in case of a malpractice suit. The retention period is
25 years because there are two ways we can get sued for alleged
malpractice involving a pediatric patient. The parents or guardians have
a seven year window of opportunity to file suit, starting at the time of
the alleged malpractice. The patient has a seven year window of
opportunity, starting at his or her 18th birthday. In principle, the
retention period should vary depending on patient age, but nobody I have
talked to so far thinks it is practical to sort records in this way;
they want a uniform retention period that covers the worst case scenario
(a patient allegedly harmed as a newborn suing just before the end of
his or her seven year window).

As far as I can tell, the most expensive part of such a configuration is
the media, and LTO media will cost about a third as much as the most
economical MagStar media (extended length 3592 volumes read and written
with TS1130 drives). With the sort of workload described above I don't
expect any difficulty staying within the recommended limit on the number
of times an LTO volume passes over the tape heads. Are there any other
reasons to be nervous about using LTO for long term archives?

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