The Tape Librarian
The management of tape libraries will continue to be a crucial function in the 21st century. Most infrastructure support organizations today have done away with a person dedicated to ensuring data integrity.
As I travel the globe doing talks and assessments, I often ask the question, "Can you guarantee that you can restore data from your backup tapes?" The answer is always, "We think so." The tape librarian function is still essential. A DORG award to production support groups that support a network environment but leave out the tape librarian function as a cost-reduction exercise. Put it back in! Never compromise data integrity! There must be one person dedicated to this function; it can't be a part-time exercise performed by the operations staff (see Figure 11).
Figure 11 The tape librarian function as part of operations.