Unusual but innovative tech event resembling ‘funeral service’ in Colombo
The invitation simply read: ‘Obituary Notice – Tape backup (1951-2016)’. An unusual invitation, anyone would have thought it was for a funeral service.
The event kicked off at the Hilton Residencies in Colombo last week with mournful music played in the background of the ballroom.
A picture of the tape recorder was kept for viewing on the side of the ballroom with candles lit around it while a flower garland was placed on the frame – ostensibly for ‘mourners’ to pay their last respects.
Then to everyone’s surprise and eventual realisation it turned out to be an event organized by Microsoft Azure to bid farewell to the ubiquitous tape recorders used by organisations around the world to backup data.
While technology is advancing from one stage to another, this is one aspect of technology Microsoft Azure has taken to move from tape backup solutions to cloud based backup platforms. The ‘funeral’ was organized for the tape backup which has survived for more 60 years.
Businesses today have some form of insurance in place in case of fire or theft. However their plans for disaster recovery and for resurrecting their business after a large scale disaster stops there. What if their backup is damaged or corrupted? Do they have insurance on their data? Businesses need to be able to rewind back to their last day or last hour and access their customer data, says Samath Fernando, CEO of H One (Pvt) Ltd at the event.
H One, the IT arm of Hirdaramani Group and a Microsoft Partner, initiated a conversation on the real cost of data loss among the Chief Information Officers from various companies to reassess its ability to bounce back after a large scale disaster.
“Many Sri Lankan businesses tend to resort to tape backups, a long-standing technology, acknowledged early for being cheap. Unfortunately tape is easily susceptible to deterioration or damage.” While advancements continue in the tape backup space, businesses increasingly find that by the time they have invested in media, automation, verification, labour, infrastructure and offsite management, tape is no longer as cheap as initial calculations suggested, added Mr. Fernando.
He quoted US research statistics that revealed that 43 per cent of companies immediately shut down after a major loss of computer records. Further 51 per cent permanently close down within two years and leave the remaining 6 per cent on survival. “Those are staggering statistics. Most companies take measures to protect only business critical workloads, leaving much of the data unprotected. This is largely due in part to the fact that businesses are unable to shoulder the upfront investments in infrastructure,” he noted.
He further stated that the real cost of data loss goes far beyond the loss of email addresses, contact information or even records of orders and transactions. It includes an overall loss of confidence, loss of present and future business, potential theft of trade secrets and confidential information, compliance breaches and strict corporate liability.
“As cloud experts, we strongly urge companies to consider the cloud for their backup and disaster recovery needs. Microsoft Azure affords businesses the ability to stay lean with the pay-as-you-go model that allows payment on a monthly basis instead of making large, one-off investments in infrastructure. The model is ideal for any type of business, be it a small start-up or a large conglomerate. For about a daily fee of Rs. 250, businesses are able to backup up to 1 Terabyte of their company’s data. This makes backup much more accessible and affordable,” he noted.