Re: Alternatives to Iron Mountain

[John Jones <chianime@xxxxxxxxx>]

FWIW my day job is Senior Information Security Analyst and I do the
investigations of lost or stolen laptops, PDA, backup media, etc.  I see
laptops stolen from cars that were just parked at a restaurant, parked
outside overnight, lost in taxis, lost and stolen at airports, etc.  I've
also had a backup tape lost by UPS (it turned up later).

It's for reasons like this that Massachusetts is going to start mandating
encryption of anything portable that contains personal information.  See
17.04 of
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=ocaterminal&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Consumer&L2=Privacy&L3=Identity+Theft&sid=Eoca&b=terminalcontent&f=reg201cmr17&csid=Eoca
This applies not only to Mass companies but to any company that stores PII
on a Mass citizen.

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Kirk Goins <kirkgoins@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Sounds like Iron Mountain needs some training in 'Customer Service'...
> While rolling your own may or may not be workable from a logistics point, I
> does open the door to several liabilities.  Let's assume a very trusted and
> responsible employee is transporting your tapes to another of your
> locations
> on their way home from work. And something like..
>
> Drives all the way home with the tapes, decides to leave the tapes in the
> car overnight and for the first time ever the car is stolen or broken into.
> The tapes are now gone.  Now what are your legal exposure? What types of
> data are on the tapes? Are they encrypted?
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 12:07 PM, <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > We'll keep rolling our own in mind also.  We have a plant reasonably far
> > enough away to be out of tornado path but not so far away as to make
> > fetching the tapes a hardship.
> >
> > The problem is that budget cuts have been so severe that they've done
> away
> > with couriers, company cars, and now even paying employees mileage
> between
> > plants is one of the reasons that we've went with Iron Mountain.  We have
> > one employee (and his son) who both drive separately by that plant and
> > they work in this department.  But he's a former teamster and is pretty
> > honked at budget cuts.  You start adding up mileage, time and stuff and
> > these other places don't look unreasonable.  It's the service that was
> > galling us:  "Thou shalt have someone key in a pin that we dropped
> > off/picked up tapes.  This person shall forfeit lunch hour, get called
> out
> > of company meetings and whatever it takes to key in the pin number
> because
> > we will be there as we see fit."
> >
> > Rob Berendt
> > --
> > Group Dekko Services, LLC
> > Dept 01.073
> > Dock 108
> > 6928N 400E
> > Kendallville, IN 46755
> > http://www.dekko.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From:
> > John Jones <chianime@xxxxxxxxx>
> > To:
> > Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Date:
> > 10/01/2009 02:48 PM
> > Subject:
> > Re: Alternatives to Iron Mountain
> > Sent by:
> >  midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
> >
> > Recall would be one of IM's competitors, but as DR2 mentioned you can
> roll
> > your own if you have multiple facilities.  At a previous employer we had
> > multiple facilities around Chicago & the suburbs.  We used a
> > grandfather/father/son strategy and rotated tapes from the data center to
> > facility A to B to C and then back to the DC.
> >
> > I've also seen branch offices that simply use UPS to ship their tapes to
> > the
> > main office.  As long as a speedy return of the tapes is not a priority
> > you
> > can do this if your company has multiple facilities but they aren't
> > geographically close.
> >
> > Another option if you have a disaster recovery provider is to send your
> > offsite backups there.  I'm sure there would be a fee but if you actually
> > had to start a recovery at least the media would be immediately
> available.
> > On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Don <dr2@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > Rob,
> > >
> > > It may be a bit simplistic, but if all you're doing is offline backup
> > tape
> > > and archival tape storage, go rent an environmentally controlled
> storage
> > > unit across town, put a big data safe in it and roll your own off site
> > > schema.  I know plenty that have done this and gotten rid of
> > organizations
> > > like tin mountain, etc...   Check around local locksmiths and office
> > > furniture liquidators for used data safes (Schwab used to make a good
> > one
> > > as
> > > I recall) and do some cost analysis.
> > >
> > > If you have a division in a separate building across town, have them
> > build
> > > a
> > > small "fireproof room" in it and slide your safe in there...
> > >
> > > DR2
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
> > > Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2009 1:28 PM
> > > To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> > > Subject: Alternatives to Iron Mountain
> > >
> > > Anyone using an offsite tape company?  We're using Iron Mountain
> however
> > > we do not have a receptionist and they like to switch around their
> > arrival
> > > time and it's getting hard to get someone in the department to forfeit
> > > their lunch in case Iron Mountain may show up.  We had an alternative
> > plan
> > > where they were given access to a secured room to pick up or remove
> > tapes
> > > and this worked well for awhile.  Now they want us to key in some PIN
> > > number - back to missing lunch.  That's why we're looking at
> > alternatives.
> > > Rob Berendt
> > > --
> > > Group Dekko Services, LLC
> > > Dept 01.073
> > > Dock 108
> > > 6928N 400E
> > > Kendallville, IN 46755
> > > http://www.dekko.com
> > >
> > > --
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> > --
> > JJ
> > "I'm in no condition to drive...Wait! I shouldn't listen to myself, I'm
> > drunk!"
> >  - Homer J. Simpson
> > --
> > This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing
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> >
> >
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>
> --
> Kirk
> --
> This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
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