Virtual Tape Library

VTL - Why you shouldn't invest in new tape Drives or Tapes

Amazon provides a service called VTL , Virtual Tape Library which means your Existing Backup Programs can utilise this service per normal E.g. Veeam! This means whenever your tape drive fails you can not move to this service with a Gateway and continue on your retention per normal without a shift in Technology or process

Costs

  • Virtual tape storage - $0.024 per GB-month of data stored
  • Virtual tape storage - Archived - $0.0045 per GB-month of data stored

How To 

  1. Download the AWS Storage Gateway virtual machine (VM) from the AWS Management Console, and deploy it where your backup server is located, on VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, or even in Amazon EC2.
  2. Install the gateway and provision storage (DAS, NAS or SAN) locally for the tape gateway. This storage will act as a durable “Upload Buffer" for data being uploaded to AWS, and as a cache for recently read virtual tape data. This Cache Storage space can be used to retain the latest backup for quick local recoveries.
  3. Configure the local gateway as a VTL using the AWS Management Console, associate its IP Address with your AWS Account and select an AWS Region for your gateway to store uploaded data.
  4. Mount the AWS Storage Gateway virtual tape drives and virtual media changer to your existing backup server and allow your backup software to discover the Virtual Tape Library and virtual tapes.
  5. Switch your backup jobs to the gateway, and data will be first written locally to the gateway, cached and buffered for upload into the VTL, which resides in S3. Much like tape automation systems, virtual tapes can be archived to Amazon Glacier for lower-cost retention which removes them from the online VTL.
  6. Retrieve tapes from archive in Amazon Glacier via the AWS Management Console and manage your recovery process via your backup software.
  7. You can deploy additional gateways at other sites, or in EC2 as well, both to back up data from those locations, and also for remote recoveries of your other sites.

Learn more about getting started here.

Azure

Starwind has partnered with Azure to offer a similar product however you need to purchase a VM to be able to do this

https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/starwind.starwindvtl?tab=Overview

Cost of this is : $0.01 / Month / GB in "Cool Storage" . and it's Archive Storage ( Cheaper ) is still to be priced