Forum Discussion

Chrisb2012's avatar
Chrisb2012
Level 3
11 years ago

Backup Exec 2010 - Encrypting or password protecting tapes

Hi,

I've been looking into protecting our backup tapes with either encryption or password protection.

We basically perform a backup to disk onto the backup exec server every night and then a duplicate job copies these to tape. We are using a HP StorageWorks Ultrium 920 LTo3 drive.

I know that encryption is going to add an overhead to our jobs so I thought it could just be added to the duplicate tape jobs that copy data to the tapes - not the actual backup to disk jobs. Is this feasible?

Would this have inpact on the backups that are done to disk?

Is the above drive capable of hardware encryption or do I need to set software encryption? Is another option just top password protect the tapes - although I can't see this option?

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

10.x and Earlier
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    11 years ago
    No. There is no function to protect a media by password. You need to use encryption to protect your media. LTO3 does not have hardware encryption, so you can only use software encryption. You might as well do the encryption when backing up to disk. If you want to encrypt just the tape, check whether the duplicate job allows encryption
  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    11 years ago
    No. There is no function to protect a media by password. You need to use encryption to protect your media. LTO3 does not have hardware encryption, so you can only use software encryption. You might as well do the encryption when backing up to disk. If you want to encrypt just the tape, check whether the duplicate job allows encryption
  • Chrisb2012's avatar
    Chrisb2012
    Level 3
    11 years ago

    Thanks for the info.

    I was trying to avoid encrypting the backup to disk as I really didnt see any point - it is only the tapes that go off site. Also the backup to disk already takes 6 hours so encrypting it would mean it would take even longer.

    I'll check to see if the duplicate job does the encryption - i'm sure I have seen that option.

    If the encryption is setup, do I need to backup anything related to the encryption or are you just prompted for the pass phrase if you try to catalogue it on another server or rebuilt server.

     

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    11 years ago
    You must remember the passphrase. If you loose it, you would not be able to access your encrypted media. The passphrase is kept in the BEDB. If you backup the Data directory under the BE installation, then the BEDB would be backed up. When you try to access an encrypted media on a media server without the passphrase, you either create an encryption key with the passphrase or respond to the prompt with it