I’ve been involved recently in three separate cases where backup tapes have been a major factor in some data recovery efforts. And not a useful factor unfortunately, although more due to lack of a good inventory of some very old tapes than anything to do with the tapes themselves. Still we’ve been presented with some major issues when dealing with boxes of the normal tape rotation of daily, weekly and monthly and yearly. So I was quite pleased to see an article by Craig Ball in the most recent Law Technology news called ‘The Lowdown On BackUp Tapes’.
There are some great tips on working with backup tapes in the article (or, to use the technical term ‘Tape Tips’) but before I mention several that I think are particularly important, let me mention the biggest issue, which is not technical at all. It’s the people.
Here’s the typical exchange between an attorney (generally outside counsel) and an IT person at the clients shop:
Attorney: hey Charley, I’m looking for some emails and data from the Boise office that deals with that big fire they had out there in ‘98. Do you have anything that goes back that far?
IT: Fire?
Attorney: Yeah, remember the plant burned down in 98 and about 20 people got killed?
IT: Yeah, that kind of rings a bell. Not sure though, I was working in the Flummox Division IT back then.
Attorney: Uh huh. So nobody ever asked you to pull any documents for the litigation around the fire.
IT: Not me, no. (Editors Note: remember this answer)
Attorney: OK, well, that’ s unfortunate but still I need to gather anything. Can you see if you have data gong back that far.
IT: It’s on backup tapes.
Attorney: Wow, that was fast. You don’t remember the fire but you know you have data on backup tapes?
IT: Everything is on backup tapes.
Attorney: OK, can you pull the Boise tapes for say 1997 and 1998 and give me an index of what’s on them?
IT: I don’t know where they are.
Attorney: OK, you don’t keep all the tapes in one place?
IT: No each location keeps their own tapes and the Boise shop was sold off to Kumquat FAG in 03.
Attorney: OK, well can you please check?
IT: Sure
Two weeks later
Attorney: Charley, never heard back from you on those tapes. Any luck?
IT: Yeah, we found some.
Attorney: UH, ok where are they?
IT: Here
Attorney: OK, can someone look at them?
IT: We don;t have the software for those tapes any more. I hade Master Blaster do an inventory of the labels.
Attorney: OK. Master Blaster. Is that a company you work with?
IT: No, that’s my night on-call IT guy. He’s a big Mad MAx fan so, well … never mind.
Attorney: OK, can you send me that inventory?
IT: Sure…