SecureSync® portal: your virtual window into the Iron Mountain® vault

Solution Guides

The SecureSync portal complements your Tape Management System (TMS) and offers you everything you need to track your media stored in an Iron Mountain tape vault.

September 30, 20196 mins
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Business challenge

According to IDG, worldwide data creation is projected to grow to an astonishing 163 zettabytes by 2025. Much of this data continues to reside on tape, with 67% of organizations leveraging tape for long-term data retention. However, manual and time intensive processes required to manage tape creates challenges to efficiently manage and track tape inventory.

There are two ways to monitor and track the inventory of your backup tape library — manually or automatically. Legacy spreadsheet-based logs and scheduling media pickups by phone offer you little benefit to maximize your staff’s time. These tools also risk introducing human error into your backup records. Regulatory mandates and audit pressures demand that your offsite tape library actually contain what you claim it does. Additionally, business transformation and innovation initiatives require quick, on-demand access to analyze and monetize data. Also consider that your media library, which may contain thousands or even tens of thousands of tapes, has dynamic properties. It is constantly undergoing tape rotations, media destruction activities, litigation holds and requests, disaster recovery tests or tape library moves. So when you desperately need your tape library inventory to be easily accessible and accurate, how do you keep your backup tape library in order?

What if you could…

  • Run discrepancy reports to compare your record log of tapes to your actual inventory?
  • Manage your offsite backup program through fewer key strokes resulting in higher accuracy and consistency?
  • Manage administrative authorization tasks easily and quickly – anytime, anywhere?
  • Tighten the integration between you and your backup data?

Market fact:

63% of organizations plan to maintain tape technology as part of their future strategy.

Source: 2018 ESG Data Protection Landscape Survey

Iron Mountain SecureSync® portal

Stop worrying about the visibility and auditability of your backup tape inventory and free up costly staff time by making Iron Mountain SecureSync portal a part of your backup operations and disaster recovery programs. As an Iron Mountain Offsite Media Vaulting customer, you automatically receive access to the SecureSync portal, our proprietary web-based tape management portal. The SecureSync portal complements your Tape Management System (TMS) and offers you everything you need to track your media stored in an Iron Mountain tape vault.

Using the SecureSync portal you’ll be able to:

  • Schedule pickups on a regular or occasional basis online
  • View tapes distributed to, stored in and returning from Iron Mountain
  • Track media at recovery sites during a disaster recovery event
  • Generate status and exception reports
  • Use formalized Disaster Recovery (DR) instructions to ensure consistent best-practice and proper planning, and speeding up the process upon declaration of a DR event

Active inventory monitoring and management

Take advantage of automated tape library management. Submit an inventory file to Iron Mountain through an FTP-based SecureSync connection, and you can receive an automated file comparison of your full inventory every day, every week or at any interval of your choosing. There is no fee for this service and you can take advantage of this capability as often as you like.

Furthermore, you can use the SecureSync portal to apply your corporate retention guidelines or regulations to backup media with the click of a button.

Better inventory control, fewer key strokes

At its core, the SecureSync portal is an efficiency tool. For example, you can create retention profiles for Closed Containers, thus reducing the need for manual entry — saving time and reducing potential for errors.

Disaster preparedness “go to” utility

In the event of a disaster, how do you want to spend your time? Figuring out logistics is not something that you want to be doing if your IT operations are impacted by a hurricane or earthquake. You can use the SecureSync portal as a central, web-based repository for storing all of your critical business continuity documents, including DR lans personnel authorizations, and data restoration procedures.

What you gain...

  • Get back up and running faster by having a single repository where you store all of your critical business continuity documents, including DR plans, personnel authorizations and data restoration procedures
  • Find what you need when you need it by gaining a virtual “window” into the vault to view what’s going on with your backup tape library
  • 24 x 7 access to a secure, web-based portal

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