Future-proof data management
They all have one thing in common: they all rely on important data. If companies cannot adequately secure and fully leverage their data, they will lose out to their competitors in the daily challenge. What is the best possible way for companies to generate added value from their data while remaining fit for the future?
With the mass of providers and the abundance of offers, it is difficult to decide on the suitable solution for data management. What must such a solution be able to do today and in the near future, and which topics are currently shaping the industry? Market leader Commvault shows IT decision-makers in a checklist what options a data management system should provide:
- Data security
Mobile devices are playing an increasingly central role in everyday work. But what is necessary when there is sensitive business data on these mobile devices? They also need to be archived and protected: In addition to endpoint data protection, solutions should also prevent unauthorized access (e.g., against extortion Trojans, crypto Trojans, or encryption Trojans) and provide fast backups for files and applications on the devices.
- Hypervisor/Cloud
When business goals change or companies want to benefit from the advantages of current technology, a change of deployment type should be granted. However, this change should also run smoothly. Providers that support numerous cloud providers and hypervisors are a great help here. Finally, the interoperability thus enabled could further help the risks and costs otherwise associated with a switch.
- Big Data is a fact
Big Data is no longer just a buzzword, but a reality in companies. No wonder, the collection, analysis and utilization of complex data sets offers unprecedented, business-relevant insights. For this reason, a data management system today must be able to scale, store, index and analyze information on an enormous scale.
Results must be available quickly, but at the same time the storage space required for the masses of data must be minimized.
- E-mail archiving
Email content is more important than ever: According to a survey by IDC, 60 percent of all business-relevant information is stored in emails. That's why an email archiving strategy is so important. Companies always have access to all important information, such as contracts or customer data. To meet the requirements of modern work, the solution should therefore simplify compliance, eliminate inflexible PST files and meet the growing storage requirements with cloud options, for example.
- Hardware independence
Many data storage systems integrate only a small selection of vendors or support only a few platforms. What is missing is an integrated approach. This restriction to a few providers makes the system change more difficult because new storage hardware is also required with the new data management solution. This in turn drives up costs to unimaginable heights. Organizations often postpone the change from the old, inefficient system and thus slow themselves down.
In order for companies to best position themselves for the future, when looking for a provider they should focus on a solution that is as flexible as possible - both in terms of hardware and deployment method - and also knows how to efficiently deal with the challenges that companies will face. Data must be protected, backup and recovery operations must be automated, intelligent access options must be introduced, costs and time must certainly be reduced, and data must be made available at all times. Certainly, they should ensure that the most important company asset - namely their data - is never accessible to unauthorized persons.
