Immutable Backups
StorSafe® VTL provides added security for your mission-critical workloads.
An immutable backup secures data by making it non-rewritable and non-erasable. As a result, it provides extra security by prohibiting accidental data deletion or ransomware attacks. Once data is written, it cannot be altered or overwritten by some virus, ransomware, or other malicious software.
Immutability ensures that your data remains safe and recoverable at any time.
To comply with data security standards, FalconStor StorSafe VTL offers backup immutability features. These features adhere to widely recognized governmental and industry requirements for compliance.
FalconStor StorSafe VTL includes the following immutable backup features:
WORM Tapes
On a virtual tape library (VTL) or drive, the Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) property can be enabled for tapes that support ULTRIUM5 media type and above. A WORM tape cannot be overwritten by backup software. You can export virtual WORM tapes to physical WORM tapes or to cloud object storage where they will maintain the WORM property to support secure data archival.
Immutable Object Storage
Immutable Object Storage locks data to provide a safe backup and to maintain data integrity. Using FalconStor StorSafe VTL with IBM Cloud Object Storage (COS), you can enable object lock at the bucket level to get secure backups and long-term data retention. Retention policies ensure that data is stored in a non-erasable and non-rewritable manner for a specified timeframe. Data cannot be changed until the retention period has expired. Once the retention period is over, data can be unlocked for further actions according to your company policies.
Typically, customers who require backups with long retentions ask for annual backups to have a seven-year reten4on. In most cases there is a regulatory requirement to keep data for this period. From the COS management GUI, you can configure the retention policy of your bucket and set the minimum and default values to zero, and the maximum retention period to the number of days you want to lock the bucket data.
From the FalconStor management GUI, you can add a tape migration policy for a VTL or drive. At the end of each backup job, the virtual tape is ejected to the vault, where the tape data gets packaged and migrated to the object storage of a cloud provider. This copy of data remains intact during the retention period and is protected from unforeseen malicious activity or accidental deletion.