AWS Storage Gateway adds data protection features for Tape Gateway

Posted on: Aug 19, 2020

AWS Storage Gateway now supports Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) and Tape Retention Lock on Tape Gateway virtual tapes, providing you data protection features to meet regulatory compliance. 

WORM-enabled virtual tapes ensure that data on active tapes in your virtual tape library cannot be overwritten or erased, providing you an added layer of protection against malicious or accidental deletion of data. This new capability complements WORM capability of virtual tapes archived in Amazon S3 Glacier and Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive, providing you comprehensive data protection for both active and archived virtual tapes.  

The new Tape Retention Lock capability allows you to specify retention mode and period on archived virtual tapes, preventing them from being deleted for a fixed amount of time or even indefinitely, including permission controls on who can delete tapes or modify retention settings. Tape Retention Lock helps you comply with industry regulations on data that you need to retain for compliance purposes. 

Tape Gateway enables you to replace using physical tapes on premises with virtual tapes in AWS without changing backup workflows. Tape Gateway caches data on premises for low-latency access, compresses and encrypts data in transit to AWS, and transitions virtual tapes to Amazon S3 Glacier or Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive to minimize storage costs. 

These capabilities are available on new gateways starting today and will be made available on existing gateways during the next software update. To learn more, see AWS Storage Gateway User Guide or the latest AWS Storage Blog. Access the Storage Gateway console to get started.