Tandberg's RDX blockbuster

Cloud Backup

Buggle thinks cloud backup services can complement RDX - D2D2C so to speak - but are also competition. RDX offers much faster bulk restore than a cloud backup service can but a cloud data centre, hopefully many miles away, will offer extra security. Symons said Yosemite is to offer a cloud backup service and will usr Nirvanix's infrastructure to do so.

Only customers' data files will go to the cloud, not their system files. Symons reckons doing data recovery from the cloud is not practicable, the data volumes being too high for the network links used by FileKeeper - and RDX - customers. You need local media to restore systems in a timely manner.

If Tandberg decides to offer a cloud backup service to complement the RDX cartridges then Yosemite is well-positioned to supply such a service as an adjunct to FileKeeper. Buggle observes about all this: "It's very intriguing."

There is a looming issue here, about cloud backup. Granted, it's convenient for backup. But it is simply not fast enough for bulk restores. Cloud backup is appropriate enough for light file restore loads. But for bulk restoration, it is suitable only when the business' recovery time objective (RTO) is flexible enough to cope with the amount of time involved. As RTO limits narrow then cloud backup will surely be ruled out for this.

You get the feeling that that's what the Tandberg RDX people are hoping. RDX is a great backup medium, they say, because it is fast and local. Yes it can be off-site but it can still be local - near enough so that your recovery time can be a lot less than with either cloud backup or tape.

There's an air of suppressed excitement about them. For sure McClain Buggle can see plenty worse products than RDX to manage and Tandberg must be thanking its lucky stars that in the horribly executed mess that it realised its tape business was in during the closing stages of 1997 there was this little nugget of solid RDX gold. ®