Lockdown

–As print copies begin to exit, the security of CDs and DVDs becomes top of mind, By Roy Worthington–

Campbell, Calif. –November, 2005 – As recently as 20 years ago, paper and ink ruled the earth. If you needed to convey large amounts of information in 1985, ownership of a printing press or ready access to one was almost mandatory. At the time, few people imagined the impact that the emerging acceptance of a standard platform for personal computing and the introduction of the compact disk would have on print's centuries-long dominance of data storage and transmission.

Print isn't on the road to extinction, but the options available today for information storage and retrieval are much richer than ever before. Optical disks (CDs and DVDs) can store the equivalent of thousands of document pages, including text, graphics, photos and video. Advances in magnetic head and platter technology allow today's hard drives to offer greater capacity, while at the other end of the scale, flash memory offers unprecedented convenience and portability, albeit at a significant cost premium.

You can still print data stored on such media, of course, but if you want to make large quantities of information readily available to a wide audience, the most effective and economical means is to provide access via electronic data networks -- LANs for communication within an organization or the Internet for public dissemination.
Network security is a challenging discipline. Although physical media are not inherently secure, they do facilitate direct control over distribution and can be destroyed when necessary.

Unfortunately, the very qualities that make networks appealing for such data broadcasting can be drawbacks when you need to restrict access to a select group of people. Network security is a challenging discipline. Although physical media are not inherently secure, they do facilitate direct control over distribution and can be destroyed when necessary.

They also have the benefit of being usable in situations where network access is not available, which is very common. And for some applications, such as video, remote network access is not yet a consistently viable option. If you want to distribute something like training videos, canned presentations or examples of TV commercials, DVDs will ordinarily be the preferred vehicle.

For almost everything else, the choice boils down to print or optical disk, whether CD or DVD. An obvious benefit of paper is that it requires no equipment to read. Where only moderate amounts of information are involved, it is a cheap, convenient and portable carrier. Where larger amounts of data are involved or where it is desirable not to have the nature of the contents apparent from casual inspection, optical disks are preferable in almost every respect, including cost. And though you can't just pick them up and read them, the necessary equipment is almost ubiquitous in the form of desktop and notebook computers. Almost all PCs now have built-in CD drives, and DVD drives are increasingly common.

There are three main ways of producing custom CDs and DVDs:

* Via a CD or DVD burner built into a PC.

* Via an outside duplicating service.

* Via in-house disk-duplicating machines.

Although the first method may be acceptable for infrequent small jobs where only a handful of copies are needed, it is very cumbersome and inefficient for even medium-volume applications. Outside duplicating services are an attractive alternative, especially for large jobs. No capital costs are involved, and disk duplicators can provide labeling and packaging at reasonable prices. But if you tend to have frequent need of disk duplication or any need for data security, you are best off with dedicated in-house hardware.

The security issue is easy to understand. High-speed duplicators used by duplicating services often burn data to CD or DVD from internal hard drives. If, for example, you supply a master CD, the duplicator will copy an image of that disk to its hard drive and then burn that image to multiple CD-Rs. Your data will be available to anyone who has access to that machine, and unless the service is scrupulous about purging data from duplicator hard drives after jobs are completed, it may remain available for a very long time.

In the worst case, it could accidentally be distributed to a third party. Government agencies are just one example of the type of organization that cannot afford to put confidential data at that kind of risk.

For this reason, as well as cost, we have seen a growing trend toward in-house disk duplication. If you have an ongoing need for medium to large batches of CDs or DVDs, a standalone duplicator can pay for itself rather quickly. Security can still be a problem, however. Imagine a duplicator with sensitive information permanently loaded on its hard drive for on-demand duplication. This is very efficient, but it's also a bit like storing a company's financial records next to a high-speed photocopier.

The latest generation of duplicators embodies an elegant solution to this particular problem: high-capacity hard drives that can be removed and stored in a secure location, either on or off site. This combines maximum convenience with maximum security. Approximately 200 CDs worth of data can be stored on a single hard drive for on-demand, high-speed transfer to optical disks. Yet in just a few minutes, all that data can be physically secured from unauthorized access. It is even possible to maintain multiple drives -- one, for example, that contains non-sensitive data that can be left in the duplicator, and another that contains confidential information that is mounted only when required and dismounted and locked away at other times.

Security is not the only consideration in choosing a CD or DVD duplicator. Price, disk capacity and burning speed, network or PC interfaces, labeling capability and other factors are important as well, depending on your particular application and volume load. Where data security is a concern, however, removable hard drives are expected to rapidly become a must-have feature.

Roy Worthington is the president of Octave Systems.

About Octave Systems, Inc.

Based in Campbell, California, Octave Systems is a leading distributor of CD and DVD duplicators, printers and other related equipment. Founded in 1984 on the philosophy that data capture, storage and duplication should be easily accessible for a wide range of businesses, Octave Systems, Inc. has become one of the leading forces in the industry.

For further information or to purchase prodcuts please contact us at 1-800-626-8539 or visit www.octave.com.

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