Quantum DLT 2000 Handbook page 140

Another DLTtape system user described his experience with labor
costs in an application that required maintaining archives of client
data. Using a 4mm DAT system, he recalls, he had reached the
point at which he was tying up two staff members for a total of
about 35 hours per week, simply swapping tapes and replacing
failed drives.
The lesson is clear: an inadequate, undersized, or insufficiently
robust backup system can be a major expense, in terms of dollars
and time, not to mention morale. By the same token, a reliable
DLTtape backup system, running with proven software, can reduce
labor costs to practically nothing. This is particularly important at
a time when most IS departments are running with minimum
staff, and IS managers want to use the people they have as produc-
tively as possible. Productivity certainly does not include loading
and unloading backup tapes. In the past, many organizations could
think of things like reduced management time as "soft savings,"
and perhaps not even include labor in a cost analysis. But when
you're running on short staff and that backup window feels like it
could close fast, those "soft" costs look very concrete.
What Does Down Time Cost?
"Down time" is another "soft" cost area. If the application goes
down and is not backed up, what's the cost? For many organiza-
tions the answer is, "we're out of business!" What is a more reliable
system worth? The answer is probably "everything!"
Another important "soft" cost area is restore time. How much does
it cost to have a slow restore time? Or, what's the value of a faster
restoration. For some applications, restores are so infrequent that
they really don't register as a defined cost. For others, a restore is
mission critical. For example, one of our customers develops video
12.6 EVALUATING THE COST OF A DLTtape BACKUP SOLUTION