Google restoring Gmail messages from tape - News - PC & Tech Authority.
We are becoming more and more reliant on the Cloud computing age, where our data is stored somewhere off in cyberspace and we don't give a second thought to where that information is actually physically held. So when Google had a slight hiccup in operations it sent thousands of people into panic mode believing that everything had just disappeared into cyberspace.
Google has a number of back up contingencies in place to avoid data and service disruption however when they were infected by a "bug" that affected multiple data centres simultaneously (in a software update) it took down Gmail services for a few thousand people. They had to turn to the good ol' backup tape - that physical contraption that many people don't even know exists but is the mundane job of the junior IT technician to change daily. The unfortunate problem with reverting to a tape backup is the time involved, it can take several hours to complete a full restore from a tape and hence why there was such a long delay in getting services back up and running.
So what can we learn from this experience? We should take from this that even though Virtualisation and Cloud computing are a great convenience they can become a massive inconvenience if something goes wrong. Always keep a backup of your data in more than one place if you desperately need to have access and any time. Never rely solely on one device - it will feel like your virtual life has stopped if for some reason you can't get access.
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