For years, we have heard the same prediction: tape is dead.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to take part in a Veeam Oxford Style Debate around the statement “Tape Is Dead”. The discussion brought up strong arguments on both sides, especially around object storage, immutability, cloud and modern archive solutions. But from my experience working with backup environments, I still believe tape has a place in a modern data protection strategy.
Disk storage became faster and more capable, object storage became more accessible, immutable repositories became an important part of ransomware protection, and cloud changed the way organizations think about long-term retention.
And yet, tape is still here.
Veeam Data Platform 13.1 gave me another reason to revisit that discussion. The platform continues to evolve around new virtualization technologies, storage integrations, security and archive capabilities, while tape is still part of that evolution.
So instead of looking at tape as an old technology competing with newer storage options, I want to look at where it fits in a modern data protection strategy through the four topics of the Veeam Community Challenge: Modern Virtualization, Veeam Software Appliance & Storage Integrations, Security & Immutability, and Unstructured Data & Storage Economics.
1. Modern Virtualization
The virtualization landscape is changing quickly.
Veeam Data Platform 13.1 expands its hypervisor ecosystem with native support for platforms such as Citrix XenServer, XCP-ng and Sangfor aSV. The new Universal Hypervisor API also provides a standardized way for additional platforms to integrate with Veeam.
There are also expanded cross-platform recovery capabilities, giving organizations more flexibility when recovering workloads between different virtualization platforms.
For me, the important point is not simply how many hypervisors Veeam supports.
Infrastructure changes. Backup and recovery requirements don't.
Organizations can migrate between hypervisors, operate different platforms at the same time, or introduce new virtualization technologies. The protection strategy therefore needs to remain independent enough to provide recovery options when the underlying infrastructure changes.
This is where secondary copies become important.
The production hypervisor does not have to determine where the last recoverable copy of the data lives.
2. Veeam Software Appliance & Storage Integrations
Veeam 13.1 also brings improvements to the Veeam Software Appliance, including drive expansion after deployment, Fibre Channel and iSCSI support, and multipathing.
At the same time, Veeam continues to expand its storage integrations, including storage fleet management, improvements for large storage snapshot environments and new integrations such as Dell Data Domain Managed File Replication.
One of the additions that caught my attention is NetApp SMTape.
With this integration, Veeam can perform block-level backups of NAS volumes directly to tape using NetApp storage snapshots. The capability is aimed at large-scale NetApp environments where organizations may need an independent copy for disaster recovery, long-term retention or compliance.
This is an interesting evolution for tape.
It is not simply a legacy destination that remains available for compatibility. It can also be part of a modern storage workflow, working alongside technologies such as snapshots rather than replacing them.
Fast operational recovery and independent long-term protection don't necessarily have to use the same mechanism.
3. Security & Immutability
This is where I believe tape still has one of its strongest use cases.
Immutability has become a fundamental part of modern backup strategies. An immutable repository can prevent backup data from being modified or deleted during its configured immutability period.
But immutable and offline are not the same thing.
An immutable repository protects the data through a defined retention policy. An offline tape copy adds another layer of separation because the media can be physically removed from the environment.
That means these technologies don't necessarily compete with each other.
They can complement each other:
Production → Backup Repository → Immutable Repository → Tape
Each layer has a different purpose.
This is something I have experienced in real environments. I have seen situations where physical events put backup infrastructure at risk, and others where a ransomware incident changed the importance of having recovery copies that were separated from the production environment.
I have also worked with large tape environments where the value of that copy only became obvious when we actually needed to recover a significant number of virtual machines from it.
The value of a backup is not really measured when the job finishes successfully.
It is measured when you need to recover.
Veeam 13.1 also includes a small but interesting tape-related improvement for IBM LTO-10: Read Past Read Permanent Error handling. This allows tape operations to continue past certain damaged sectors instead of stopping immediately, improving the ability to work with partially damaged media.
It is not a headline feature, but it is another example of tape continuing to receive attention in the platform.
4. Unstructured Data & Storage Economics
Long-term retention changes the economics of backup.
Keeping years of backup data on high-performance storage is not always the most efficient approach. Different data has different recovery requirements, and storage tiers should reflect that.
Veeam 13.1 expands archive-class storage capabilities, including Veeam Data Cloud Vault Archive, based on Azure Blob Archive storage. It can be used for long-term retention of data that is expected to be accessed rarely, where storage cost becomes more important than immediate accessibility.
The new Archive Tier Copy Policy also provides more flexibility for GFS restore points, allowing copies to be sent to archive storage as they are created while the local copy remains available in the Performance Tier according to its retention policy.
This is where I don't think the discussion should be “tape versus cloud”.
There is no single storage technology that is the best choice for every workload.
For some organizations, archive object storage may be the right answer.
For others, especially when dealing with large amounts of data and long retention periods, tape can still be an extremely attractive option.
The important question is:
Which storage tier makes the most sense for this data, this retention period and this recovery requirement?
That is the real storage economics discussion.
Why Now?
So, why should customers upgrade to Veeam Data Platform 13.1 now?
Because data protection is becoming more diverse.
Organizations are adopting new virtualization platforms, protecting increasing amounts of unstructured data, dealing with more sophisticated cyber threats and looking for better ways to retain data for years.
Veeam 13.1 brings these areas together with broader hypervisor support, improvements to the Software Appliance, new storage integrations, stronger security and resilience capabilities, and additional options for long-term and archive storage.
And perhaps one of the most interesting things about this release is that modern data protection does not mean abandoning proven technologies.
Tape can coexist with immutable repositories.
Tape can complement archive storage.
Tape can provide an independent recovery path.
And with capabilities such as NetApp SMTape and improved LTO-10 error handling, Veeam 13.1 shows that tape is still part of the data protection conversation.
Tape does not need to be the fastest, newest or most convenient storage option.
It needs to be there when you need another recovery path.
And that is exactly why I don't think its story is over.
