Stockholm, Sweden – 17 Augusti 2026
Cristie today announced Cristie S3‑2‑Tape, a new value‑add option for Cristie Recovery Solution powered by Rubrik (CRS‑r). The option enables secure, policy‑driven transfer of S3 object data directly to tape, providing immutable, air‑gapped long‑term retention and an additional layer of ransomware protection for European organisations and the partners who serve them.
Cristie S3‑2‑Tape extends CRS‑r with a tape‑based retention tier. Backup and archive data can be written to tape under WORM and retention policies, helping protect long-term copies from modification or deletion, including scenarios involving operational mistakes or compromised administrative accounts.
The option is aimed at organisations with long retention obligations and large data volumes — public sector, healthcare, research, media, finance and manufacturing — where keeping years of data on primary or disk‑based storage is neither economical nor, in some cases, defensible.
The option is built on Cristie Archival Gateway, a software‑based object storage layer that supports tape libraries as archive storage. The Archival Gateway provides a standardised S3 REST API to applications that need to archive data, and abstracts from the underlying tape storage systems, which are freely selectable and exchangeable.
In practice, CRS‑r writes to what looks like an ordinary S3 target.
As an interface for applications that need to archive data, the Archival Gateway provides a standardized S3 REST API. Thus, the software can be used without any adaptations for the strongly increasing number of applications supporting object-based storage based on S3 REST. The concept of the Archival Gateway abstracts from the used tape storage systems which are freely selectable and exchangeable. The gateway is designed for scalable parallelism and high transfer rates, depending on deployment architecture, tape library configuration and workload profile.
Cristie Archival Gateway writes object data directly to the tape media and does not require buffer hard disks. Therefore, cumbersome S3 Glacier commands for reading the archived data are not necessary.
The solution may be purchased as hardware- or virtual appliance to any solution that needs to store on tape. Cristie provides it due to the high request as an option in our Cristie Recovery Solution concept.
Backup copies are now a primary target, not collateral damage. Attackers who reach the network routinely go after the backup repository before triggering encryption — which is exactly why regulators have moved from "take backups" to "prove the backup survives and restores."
Tape answers that in a way software alone cannot. Once exported and stored offline, the tape copy is no longer network-addressable, reducing exposure to network-borne attacks. Combined with Cristie Recovery Assurance — automated restore testing, clean‑room recovery verification and recovery orchestration, included as standard in CRS‑r — customers get both halves of the equation: a copy that cannot be destroyed, and evidence that it comes back.
There is an operational argument too. Tape draws no power at rest, lowering both cost and energy footprint for the retention tier, and it removes the egress and retrieval charges that make long‑term cloud archive tiers unpredictable to budget.
Q: How does S3-to-Tape help organizations meet NIS2 requirements?
A: NIS2 Article 21(2)(c) requires organizations to implement business continuity, backup management, disaster recovery, and crisis management measures. S3-to-Tape adds an offline and immutable storage tier to the data protection strategy, creating an additional layer of resilience against ransomware and cyberattacks. Combined with Recovery Assurance, organizations can regularly validate recoverability and produce documented evidence that backup and recovery processes are functioning as intended.
Q: How does the solution support DORA compliance?
A: DORA (Regulation (EU) 2022/2554), Article 12, requires financial entities to maintain documented backup policies, defined restoration procedures, and periodic testing of both. S3-to-Tape enables policy-driven data movement and retention management, ensuring backups are stored according to organizational and regulatory requirements. Recovery Assurance complements this by automating recovery testing and providing audit-ready documentation that demonstrates recovery readiness.
Q: Why is tape particularly relevant for DORA's segregation requirements?
A: DORA Article 12(3) states that backup data should be restored using ICT systems that are physically and logically segregated from the source environment. Tape naturally supports this requirement. Once exported from the tape library, media becomes physically separate and no longer network-addressable, providing isolation by design rather than relying solely on network or system configuration.
Q: How does S3-to-Tape align with ISO/IEC 27001:2022?
A: ISO/IEC 27001 includes controls covering information backup, redundancy, business continuity readiness, and protection of records, including Annex A controls 8.13, 8.14, 5.29, 5.30, and 5.33. S3-to-Tape provides a secure, long-term retention platform for critical information, while Recovery Assurance verifies that data can be successfully restored when required. Together, they help organizations demonstrate compliance with key resilience and recovery controls.
Q: How does the solution support ISO/IEC 27040 storage security requirements?
A: ISO/IEC 27040 focuses on securing stored data and protecting long-term information assets. S3-to-Tape helps satisfy these objectives through capabilities such as encryption, object locking, immutability, and policy-based retention management. These features protect data against unauthorized modification, deletion, and cyber threats throughout its retention lifecycle.
Q: How does tape support compliance with ISO 15489 for records management?
A: ISO 15489 emphasizes the authenticity, reliability, integrity, and usability of records over time. Tape storage, particularly when combined with WORM (Write Once Read Many) technology and retention policies, enables organizations to preserve records in a tamper-resistant format. This helps demonstrate record integrity and regulatory compliance over extended retention periods.
Q: What is the key benefit of combining S3-to-Tape with Recovery Assurance?
A: S3-to-Tape ensures that a secure, offline, and cost-effective copy of critical data is always available. Recovery Assurance validates that this data can actually be recovered when needed. Together, they provide a powerful foundation for cyber resilience, regulatory compliance, and business continuity, helping organizations avoid the risk of discovering backup failures during a real crisis.
Cristie S3‑2‑Tape is available now as an option to Cristie Recovery Solution powered by Rubrik (CRS‑r), through Cristie's European partner network of MSPs, distributors and resellers, on Cristie's monthly pay‑per‑use and subscription models.
"Immutability in software is necessary but no longer sufficient. Our partners are being asked, by auditors and by their own customers, to show a copy that is physically out of reach — and to show it restores. Cristie S3‑2‑Tape closes that gap inside the solution they already run.”
The tape tier is integrated into Cloutility Self-Service Portal, so you're not adding a second console:
Tenants create their own users and buckets and set authorisations themselves
Storage, repositories and permissions organised in your existing reseller/customer/department hierarchy
One control point for Rubrik and the tape tier together
Cristie designs and delivers tailored backup, disaster recovery and cyber recovery solutions for MSPs, distributors and resellers across Europe — powered by Rubrik Zero Trust technology with Recovery Assurance. All solutions are assembled and supported in Europe, ensuring trusted supply chains, regulatory alignment and local expertise. Cristie Solution was first introduced in 2013. Systems are assembled at the Dell OEM factory in Ireland in accordance with Rubrik's regulations, and Cristie is an authorised Rubrik support provider across the Nordics, the Baltics, the DACH region, Poland, France and the Benelux countries, with support delivered by Rubrik‑trained Cristie engineers in nine languages.