Backup to tape software has been used for a long time as one of the fundamental strategies for information protection in enterprise organizations. Despite some vendors stating that ‘tape is dead’, tape backup software still continues to be a key technology in enterprise backup. The main reason for this is the sheer reliability of the backup tape. Continuing backup to tape modernization brings increasing performance and capacity, while lowering cost per GB of data stored. This has also allowed to obtain longer periods of validity of the stored data. Tape Backup to tape portability and ease of migration to other locations, remote or local, are important elements in the implementation of disaster recovery and high availability environments.

Many system administrators and IT directors discuss the pros and cons of both backup to tape and disk. However, a balanced backup and recovery strategy brings disk and tape backup solutions together. One of the examples of using tape backup solution is transferring the 60-180 days disk backups to (lower cost) tapes or even to low-cost disk and then tape (D2D2T).

Since its beginning in the year 2000, Bacula has used backup to tape as one of its fundamental features, embracing many different types of existing and emerging tape backup hardware.

Download free trial Disaster recovery whitepaper Free backup infrastructure assessmentBacula Enterprise Edition is based on the Bacula community project (bacula.org) which was backup to tape software since its conception as one of the main media types.  Supporting backup to tape has always been a #1 priority. Bacula Enterprise tape backup software is enterprise-ready. Our backup to tape is completely agnostic when it comes to drives, autoloaders and library models. This means that a large range of tape backup solutions and systems are available to the Bacula user. The advantage of Bacula’s architecture is that, as long as the hardware can be accessed via mt/mtx commands, Bacula will be able to utilize it. This feature allows tape backup server to reuse tape units that could not be recognized by new tape backup solutions.

Bacula Enterprise Edition’s tape backup software implementation and production work is very simple and scalable; it doesn’t require additional licenses for custom configuration and scalability which results in significant savings of operational costs, without the surcharges for use of agent and new devices.

Bacula Enterprise Edition has fully integrated tape backup solutions in its core architecture. This includes autoloaders and Virtual Tape Libraries (VTL’s). One of the key differentiators of Bacula Enterprise Edition over other enterprise-level backup solutions is its compatibility with an especially wide range of drives, tape libraries and autoloaders that include different types of technologies, such as DDS, DLT, LTO, etc. and different manufacturers of the tape backup industry.

Here are just some libraries and autoloaders that are known to work with Bacula Enterprise Edition tape backup software:

• DELL PowerVault TL4000
• Qualstar RLS-8450
• StorageTek L180
• Oracle StorageTek SL500
• Oracle StorageTek SL3000

The following tape drives are used in the above libraries and are known to work with Bacula Enterprise Edition tape backup solution:

• HP StoreEver LTO-4 Ultrium
• IBM TS1130 E06
• IBM LTO Ultrium TD2
• IBM LTO Ultrium HH4
• IBM LTO Ultrium HH5
• IBM LTO Ultrium HH6
• Other LTO tape backup drives

Bacula Enterprise Edition brings management flexibility to your tape backup system with a variety of options: simple command line or powerful online interface — BWeb Management Suite.

Bacula Enterprise Edition also offers:

• Backup to tape reliable, flexible and economical software;
• Ease of configuration and implementation of the tape backup solution;
• Management of different types of tape backup levels (incremental, differential, full etc);
• Compression and encryption of the data backed up using tape;
• Fast and effective restore procedure (fast restore from tapes makes Bacula Enterprise one of the best tape backup software);
• Simple and intuitive tapes labeling, which facilitates the organization of resources and jobs;
• Centralized backup administration console;
• Scheduling of tape backup system.

Download free trial Disaster recovery whitepaper Free backup infrastructure assessmentFurther help on tape backup:

• Bacula Enterprise supports 25+ OSes. See our most often Windows server backup software and Linux server backup solution.
• Backup training program is available in different locations, depending on the Certified Bacula Systems Training Center you choose.
• Need database backup support for all DB types? Take a look at our database backup solution, incl. MySQL backup, backup of PostgreSQL database, Oracle backup, SAP Hana backup and others.
• Bacula Enterprise Edition works for physical, virtual server and cloud backup IT infrastructures.