Data Centers of all sizes are facing a data epidemic, especially State and Local Governments. In fact data growth in government is potentially greater than in the private sector. Not only is there more data, there are more data types and requirements for longer retention. In this article George Crump, Lead Analyst with Storage Switzerland discusses how combating the data epidemic requires new innovation from an old source – tape. Rather than competing against disk, tape, combined with the right solution, can compliment and extend the useful life of disk storage assets.