One in Four Organizations Experienced Data Loss in Past Two Years

Customer, student, employee and patient information is most at risk for cyber attacks today, and defending that data is a top concern for IT professionals this year.

Concern about data loss is well founded: One in four organizations has experienced a data loss in the last two years. Many organizations report breaches jeopardizing their network, email or other sensitive information, which examines data security concerns across industries, including medium and large businesses, financial services and healthcare organizations and higher education institutions.

One IT professional at a financial services company noted: "Security is harder every day due to the ease with which personal information is gained."

Data loss comes at a cost: A Ponemon Institute study published in March found that organizations suffering a data loss in 2011 paid an average of $5.5 million per breach, which translates into an average of $194 per record lost.

The survey shows that the number of people accessing business networks increased by an average of 41% during the last two years. Inadequate security policies contribute to security challenges: While most organizations allow employees to access their networks with personal mobile devices, security policies for employee-owned devices are often less strict than for employer-owned devices. Twenty-seven% of IT professionals said they do not have security policies for employee-owned mobile devices.

Organizations that give their data security an "A" grade layer nearly all available data loss prevention measures, including encrypted storage, backup and email gateway; endpoint data loss prevention and security solutions; full-disk encryption; and Web security filters. Organizations with "A" security are also more likely than others to require employee-owned mobile devices to comply with defined security procedures before they are granted network access.

Data loss prevention solutions help to protect personal, financial and research and development data, and they also flag any data being handled in a way that deviates from established security policies.

Tape Storage Adoption for Data Archiving, Long Term Data Retention Grows

Overland Storage recently conducted a nationwide survey of its customers in the United States to learn more about how they use Overland tape libraries. The results of the survey indicate that tape storage remains a critical component of the data center. Half of respondents said that their business could not manage without tape storage and 56 percent of respondents said they keep data on disk for a month or less before moving it to tape.

Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of respondents are using tape storage for onsite backups and 63 percent are using tape storage for offsite backups and disaster recovery, according to survey results, and 80 percent of respondents do not believe that archiving to the cloud will replace tape storage.

"Industry analyst research, Overland Storage customer survey data and the overall growth in the tape storage marketplace confirm that tape-based storage remains a critical part of any data protection strategy due to its cost of ownership, portability, lower energy consumption, long shelf life, robust design and compact footprint advantages," said Peri Grover, director of marketing for tape solutions at Overland Storage. Fueling the current expansion of the tape storage market is an increased demand for flexible solutions designed to address rapid business data growth combined with the increasing acknowledgment of tape's cost-effectiveness over de-duplicated disk, the report noted. 

Research from analysts at IT research firm Enterprise Strategy Group also indicates tape is the predominant storage media used for data protection due to its portability and, from an acquisition cost perspective, its price. As tape capacities continue to out-ship disk capacities and "the use of tape now dominates archiving over internal disk, external disk or cloud... tape's lead is expected to grow during the next five years, demonstrating 45 percent annual growth by 2015."

Overland also announced the availability of NEO 600s and NEO 800s, two additions to its line of automated tape libraries aimed at offering more choices for tape deployments in the tape storage market. NEO 600s and NEO 800s are designed to help solve data storage protection challenges. The NEO 600s packs up to 216TB of backup and archive capacity into a 6U form factor while NEO 800s provides up to 244TB in an 8U form factor.

In addition to high-capacity storage, the 600s and 800s feature multi-drive support. Utilizing LTO-5 tape drive technology, NEO 600s and 800s allows businesses to leverage the efficiencies of new linear tape file system (LTFS) technology. The NEO 600s and NEO 800s solutions are available with a starting of $14,499 and are included in Overland's "Trade Up and Save" promotion, which offers customers up to $2,000 in cash rebates for a limited time.

Overland Storage Announces Integration of IBM LTO Drives in Their NEO Series LTO Tape Libraries

Overland Storage today announced they are integrating IBM Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology into the company's line of NEO tape libraries. With over 100,000 NEO libraries installed worldwide, Overland Storage is recognized as a leader in high-capacity data backup and archive for enterprise data center environments and this offering further enhances both Overland's NEO S-Series and NEO E-Series backup and archive solutions.

"Our relationship with IBM is part of a multi-year agreement that we believe gives us the ability to enhance our data protection product set, as well as provide solutions designed to meet the growing demands for data archive," said Eric Kelly, President and CEO of Overland Storage. "While the integration of IBM LTO technology benefits our NEO Series product line, we are particularly excited about the opportunities the overall relationship will bring to our business, including the ability to leverage IBM's worldwide logistics and supply chain," said Mr. Kelly.

NEO E-Series libraries provide users with storage capacities ranging from 24TB to 3PB, and are focused on delivering flexible, robust backup and archive solutions that deliver superior cost of ownership. NEO S-Series libraries deliver storage capacities ranging from 19TB to 144TB and are designed to provide compact, cost-effective backup and archive solutions. The transition to IBM tape technology in both the NEO S-Series and NEO E-Series solutions is effective April 2012.