Hard Lessons

Are you bored with boxes, stressed with shredding or just looking for another revenue stream? Are you considering adding data protection to the list of services offered by your information security and management company? Let me give you a few things to consider prior to taking the leap in the form of a couple of helpful firsthand lessons.

LESSON NO. 1
It was a hot August day in 1987 in Winston-Salem, N.C. We had just recently (and proudly) opened our first vault. It was without a doubt the best vault in our market. (It was, at that time, the only vault in our market.) Still, we had every reason to be proud of what we had built and quickly began to fill it up with an endless supply of round reels and disk packs.

This particular muggy August day was going as smoothly as any other, with one of our smartest and youngest employees loading up his afternoon deliveries. He was taking out the brand new Chevy Astro Van fully equipped with nothing except an AM radio. Yep—no air conditioning, no insulation, a full set of un-tinted windows and nice knobs on the window cranks. I’m fairly certain the locks worked.

Are you getting the picture? A hot August day, a small enclosed mini-van with no air conditioning and an afternoon full of vault deliveries.

It was about 4 p.m. (Some things you never forget.) when my phone rang. It was our newest and largest daily tape client. I asked how he was doing and what I could do for him.

He politely told me that he was doing fine until he walked by the loading dock and observed our driver beating his tape cases with the “tire lug wrench.” He explained to me that this soon-to-be-ex-employee (I remember his name but will not use it to protect the guilty.) must have gotten a little over-heated, as did his tapes. He went on to explain that while checking to see if the above described beating had done any damage to his backup tapes,  he noticed that several of the tape rings (If you’re old, you know what I am referring to.) had melted together. This, for some reason, seemed to concern him.

LESSON NO. 2
There is nothing quite like Thanksgiving at the in-laws’ in West Virginia. This one was especially memorable for a couple of reasons. First, I was given my first electric screwdriver as my Thanks-Christmas gift (Thanksgiving is spent with my wife’s family, and Christmas is spent with mine.) only to have it taken away because someone had placed the wrong name tag on the gift. Second was the phone call from our 24-hour on-call coverage employee informing me that the Halon (Again, I’m showing my age.) in our second vault had discharged.

“But not to worry, all was fine, and there was no fire,” the employee assured me.

This, of course, was spoken by someone who had no idea of the money involved in recharging five tanks for a 2,400-square-foot vault with 20-foot ceilings.

Now a properly installed Halon system requires two separate alarms to trigger prior to a discharge. (Here is the fun part!) Trigger one was a detection device mounted much too close to a heat vent. This had evidently been an issue that went unobserved or unreported for some time. Trigger two was a ball of dust that decided to attach itself to a second detection device, which was mounted a sufficient distance from the heat vent. Trigger one plus trigger two equaled a phone call to Chris to let him know, “All is well, there is no fire.”

A DISTINCT SERVICE
I could go on, providing you with examples of numerous other “lessons learned,” like why I will never again ignore my upbringing and allow us to issue to any client the account number of “666.” But let me quit scaring you with horror stories and explain why I shared the above instances with you and provide some additional basics to consider prior to entering the wonderful world of tape vaulting and data protection.

The moral of the first lesson is that tape vaulting is not box storage and it is not shredding. Do not think for a minute that just because you have delivery or collection vehicles with professional uniformed drivers blanketing your marketplace that you can just toss some tapes in on the route and call it data protection.
The moral of the second lesson is that tape vaulting is not box storage and it is not shredding. Do not think for a minute that you can condition a room, restrict access to only “authorized employees” and call it data protection.

I’m sure that if you are reading this article, you are attempting to run a first-class operation and have an interest in staying abreast of the latest and greatest in the information security and management industry. You’re most likely a member of NAID (National Association for Information Protection) or PRISM International and are trying every day to push service over price, working hard to provide your employees with a safe and secure place to provide for themselves and their families.

Assuming all that is true, it would follow that you would be willing to learn from those who have been there and done that so that you will not have to go through some of the painful experiences outlined above. Well, as someone who has certainly been there and done that (wrong in many cases), here are a few things to consider:

Market Demand – I contend that if you are operating a successful shredding or records center business then you are located in a market where there is a demand for tape vaulting/data protection services. I do suggest that you research the competitive landscape of your market, looking at who the players are, what their strengths and weaknesses are and whether they are servicing any of your existing clients.

Vault Size – Properly constructing a tape vault is not inexpensive and, therefore, is not something you want to size based on what you hope to do but rather on what you think is realistically needed for the next two years. If you hit a home run early in your sales and marketing efforts, then you will be more than happy to expand (out or up) to accommodate the surprise. I once had a good friend share some very wise words with me: “Don’t build the church for Easter.”

Vault Construction  – Once you have determined the appropriate size vault to construct, you will need to find a contractor who understands what you are trying to accomplish from a fire-rating standpoint as well as any local building and fire codes that may affect construction, all the while keeping in mind that you are only as strong as your weakest link. Surprises on the day you are expecting your certificate of occupancy and the arrival of your first client’s tapes are not a welcome sight. Consider hiring an industry expert in vaulting construction to assist you with the design.

Placement of Vault – A standalone building that is separate from your existing records center or shredding operation is ideal. It could send the wrong message to your clients if they have to walk through boxes or by a plant-based shredder to get to their precious backup data.

For numerous reasons, you should not construct a tape vault that shares a roof with a shredding operation.

In the event that you are in a situation where total separation from a records center is not possible, make every effort to clearly segregate the two areas. 

Remember what you’re selling and that perception is reality.

Security and Climate Control – Additional levels of access control and climate (humidity and temperature) monitoring/reporting will be expected by the majority of your mid-size to larger clients. It also will be appreciated by your smaller clients, who in turn chat with their geeky friends who work for the mid-size to larger clients.

Operational Considerations  – Tape vaulting/data protection is not a Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. service offering, and operations will require 7/24/365 coverage. Staffing and after-hours coverage can be quite challenging.

An inventory control application must be in place that handles the nuances that tape backup rotation and management require.

Do some homework to decide if you are going to be a “slot,” a “container,” or a “hybrid” shop. There are advantages to each, but personally we have allowed the demand to dictate the supply. This is much like the age-old order-picker-vs.-mezzanine argument. (I’m a “mezz” man, myself.)

Insurance/Liability  – You will want to clearly understand the liability and insurance ramifications of entering the tape vaulting/data protection business. Limitations still exist and are still geared toward replacement value of the storage media, but tapes cost a bit more to replace than a corrugated records box. Professional liability coverage provides some coverage for the exposure that falls outside of those covered by Warehouseman’s Legal. Reassess your insurance coverage frequently, as you do not want to be over or under insured. The addition of one decent-sized account can drastically change your exposure.

Pricing Strategy – This is a bit different than in the box world, where storage is invoiced in advance and activity in arrears. In the tape vaulting world, service providers typically invoice storage per the previous month’s high watermark. Activity is invoiced in arrears, and minimums for storage and handling activities are common. (The majority of accounts tend to fall into the minimum level for both storage and activity.)   
 

"Properly constructing a tape vault is not inexpensive and, therefore, is not something you want to size based on what you hope to do but on rather what you think is realistically needed for the next two years."

Getting Started – We have only scratched the service here, and I would advise anyone who is considering entering the tape vaulting/data protection market to tour two or three well-respected vaulting operations and chat with each of them about what they would do differently if they had it to do again. Travel outside of your service area to accomplish this. (I have found our industry to be very open to sharing information.) I suggest starting with the members of NAID, Bare Metal Data Group and PRISM International. All three of these organizations have data protection members that have been in the industry for many years and would be willing to assist someone considering expanding into data protection.

Meet with your existing client base about their interest level in this service. (This also will be helpful in your market demand analysis mentioned earlier.) However, keep in mind that most often the individual who is responsible for tape backup is not the person who is responsible for paper files or for shredding. (However, your existing client contacts are your lowest hanging fruit, and the contact you do have can make the introduction to the tech guy who needs you.)

And, for your information, we did not lose the “tire lug wrench” client and did recharge the five Halon tanks. In fact, we knew exactly how much it would cost us because we had just gone through the process of having the empty tanks filled when we acquired this vaulting operation only months prior to this discharge.