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Are people backing up data to a mainframe?

Are people backing up their data on servers to the mainframe? What would the advantages and disadvantages be?

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I'm sure someone is but it would have to be because they want to use and/or leverage their multi-million dollar investment in ESCON attached tape drives. The mainframe is significantly behind in many areas of connectivity such as high bandwidth Ethernet or Fibre Channel. But, if you've got a multi-million dollar tape library that is going unused, perhaps there is justification for going that way. Be aware, it also significantly decreases your choices in backup software. If you want to do your backups that way, you're reduced from 50+ vendors to a handful. Only one or two of which would be considered otherwise.

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This was first published in January 2003

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