TapeTrack Primer

The purpose of this section is to describe the history, design methodology and benefits of TapeTrack.

It is not required reading, but it might provide users with some insight into how to get the best out of their use of the product; it is effectively a FAQ of the non-technical questions we are asked from time-to-time.

TapeTrack is computer software designed specifically for the purpose of managing computer backup tapes.

Each enterprise has unique tape infrastructure, and has developed unique tape management processes, but generally speaking, you need TapeTrack because each of the components involved in the tape management process only provide very narrow functionality:

1. Backup software focusses on writing data to tapes and only keeps an inventory of tapes that it knows about.
2. Robotic Libraries only know about the tapes in their slots, and don't know which tapes are expected to be in the library.
3. Tapes that are outside Robotic Libraries have no software at all to keep track of them in racking units.
4. Off-site vendors know about the tapes they have (ideally) and sometimes they make mistakes.
5. When ejecting tapes, sometimes the library misses tapes, or ejects tapes that aren't part of the batches that are being sent off-site.
6. There is no way of tracking unbarcoded tapes before they are used.
7. There is no one list of every ever tape owned by the enterprise.
8. There is no history of the movements of each tape that includes which operators touched them.
9. There is no way to ensure that each robotic library (or virtual library) has enough scratch tapes to get through the backup workload.

TapeTrack is used by over 4,000 enterprises around the world.

These enterprises fall into the following categories:

1. Data protection companies who store backup tapes on the behalf of multiple other companies (a list of these companies can be found here).
2. The direct customers of data protection companies who use TapeTrack both manage their on-site tapes, and the tapes stored offsite with their vendor.
3. Data Center customers who manage their own on-site and offsite tape inventories.
4. Data Center customers who manage their own on-site inventories and use the services of a data protection company who do not offer TapeTrack services.

The first version of TapeTrack was released in 1999, and the product has been continually developed since that date with input from a growing customer base.

The original developer of TapeTrack was Tape Management Services Pty Ltd, who then became TapeTrack Pty Ltd, and is now GazillaByte LLC.

TapeTrack is designed around the 5 Pillars of Tape Management:

1. Asset Management: A complete list of every single tape.
2. Chain-of-Custody: Where each tape has been and who has touched it.
3. Library Management: Where each tape needs to be.
4. Disaster Recovery: Are all my critical tapes offsite?
5. Quality Control: Am I managing my tapes properly?

TapeTrack has a whole bunch of terms that you should familiarize yourself with.

An example sentence using TapeTrack Jargon:

When I came in this morning, Volume 000001L5 had a current location of the SL8500 Library, but then the Synchronization task ran against TSM, and updated the target location (putting the tape into a Move Status from the SL8500 to Iron Mountain). Later that day, when the Reconciliation task ran, we noticed that the tape was not yet confirmed at Iron Mountain, and as a result had been marked as Overdue. We contacted Iron Mountain and confirmed that the tape has arrived but had not been scanned into SecureSync. We later re-ran the reconciliation and the tape was confirmed as being at Iron Mountain.

TapeTrack Software falls into the following categories:

• TapeTrack Framework Server.
• TapeTrack Windows Clients.
• TapeTrack Command Line Clients.
• TapeTrack Web Services.
• TapeTrack Mobile Software.
• TapeTrack Extensions.

While TapeTrack is designed around the 5 Pillars of Tape Management, it is comprised of many interconnecting sub-systems. These subsystems work together to automate the process of tape management.

These sub-systems are:

• Alerting.
• Barcode Management.
• Certification.
• Consignment Control.
• Catalog Management.
• Disaster Recovery.
• Reporting.
• Simple Management.
• Slot Management.
• Stock Control.

• Customer.
• Media Type.
• Volume.
• Repository.
• Data Cluster.
• Simple Management Rule.
• User.

TapeTrack software is released quarterly, and the version numbers reflect these releases:

• Q1 Major Release is released in January of each year.
• Q2 Minor Release is released in April of each year.
• Q3 Minor Release is released in July of each year.
• Q4 Minor Release is released in October of each year.

We recommend that users upgrade at least once per year to the Major release and that no user becomes more than 2 years behind the current release.