Data Growth

How can we manage data growth?

Globally data volumes will increase 10x from 2017. How we factor in a 10x increase in data growth with our storage and infrastructure is a challenge many businesses face.

Data Management

Is your data structured or unstructured?  Structured data is typically information in the form of a database this can be easily entered, stored, accessed and queried.  Unstructured data is the main problem in businesses today as it does not have any form of structure so everything from social media posts, business documents, email, images and texts is increasingly causing businesses concern of where to store the fastest growing form of information.

Identification

With the deluge of unstructured data becoming an increasing concern for businesses, this data needs to be somehow managed in a way that determines all of the following:

• Does it belong on the business network?
• How valuable is this information?
• What rules do we have around data retention, deletion?
• What are the legal requirements on this information?
• Who has access to it?
• Does the data have intellectual property?
• Can individuals copy data from the business network to i.e. Drop Box?
• How many copies of the data exist?
• Where is this information stored?
• What applications are driving the data growth?
• What issues do you face in handling ever increasing data volumes?
• What plans have you made to streamline data growth?
• What existing data analysis tools do you have to investigate and mine the data?
• Can you move the data to something more affordable?

Where to store it?

Data growth today is the biggest challenge for even the best IT managers.  Our diagram below shows the various storage tiers.  Do you have the necessary tools to move data between the tiers automatically or manually move information when required?

All these systems with the exception of paper consume energy and depending on the storage tier cost a small or large amount of money.  Putting data to the Cloud costs money as you pay every month to store it, replicate, download etc and it’s slow to upload / download compared to on-site storage.  Due to data growth the information needs to be managed and controlled, procedures written regarding time frames to keep or delete and the Legal / HR department involved regarding the corporate governance of the data.

The problems

Increasingly like backup this is a task that no-one likes to discuss or get involved with, as normally it’s been neglected and is now a bigger problem than anyone envisaged.  Getting to grips with this data growth problem is not easy and could take months or years to get working right from the start.  Choosing the right sort of technology and software is not for the faint hearted as it could cost many thousands to get started.

Streamline Data Growth

Your most expensive storage shouldn’t be used to store legacy data.  Rules and policies should be put in place that automatically moves data to the desired location with little or no user input, this could be to a NAS, file server or the Cloud.  You will benefit from knowing where your data resides, who owns it and how old it is, in addition to this your systems will perform better and backup volumes massively reduced and ultimately this will save you money by extending the use of your existing storage investment!

We can advise and provide a range of solutions to meet your business requirements and expectations. Please contact us using the details below.