Up untill about 2007-2008 most of the tape library and tape system’s found at large banks and Information technology systems are based on storing information to tape on a daily basis.
The only time for a feasible backup window without staging was in the night when, less people, are utilizing resources from the server to be backed up.
However, the situation has changed considerably seen the arrival of data storage solutions that can still keep vital data off-site without even installing a backup client on the host.
Getting to this solution is only possible if you have a dedicated storage platform based on iSCSI LUN/NFS of CIFS in your data center, as this is where your servers will run from.
This dedicated storage platform is then provisioned at least twice, each at different locations to create geographical dispersion.
Several gizo whiz words are used for these technologies such as snapvault, snapshot, copybit write, shadow write.
These concepts essentially propose changes to the running copy but at the same time write to the backup set of storage, that act as a live backup.
All these technologies, will slowly create a diversion from tape libraries and entice new products to backup these dedicated storage systems. Who knows LTO5? LTO6?
Optical devices are also possible, Optomagentic even. Who knows? Open for comment