“There’s a debate going on about data protection methods right now, and it centers on ‘disk, tape, or cloud.’ Of course, cloud is a delivery mechanism, not a medium, and cloud providers are using disk and near-line tape, too.” Jason Buffington of Enterprise Strategy Group opens this recent SearchDataBackup article with this wonderful clarification on the bounds of the data management debate. Delivery Mechanism is the key to data accessibility, and when an Information Governance committee is willing to think creatively about how to maximize the efficiency of their storage medium, so long as they maintain a par level of delivery mechanism speed, they can achieve huge IT savings.
As IT departments feel the financial burden of storing more data on their servers each year, both local and virtual, they are being forced to recognize the cost savings associated with segregating active and inactive data. A popular method is to segregate inactive or archival data onto static devices such as tape or hard drives that can be securely stored offsite with little need for recovery, and active data on file servers that can be quickly accessed.
Our IT team predicts we will see a dramatic shift in this trend over the next 3 years as Information Governance teams begin to develop budgets for meeting their goals and reign in their spend on cloud storage of data that is rarely accessed. In fact, we are already seeing hybrid forms of the two develop. Consider this example from Oracle that helps connect traditional mainframe storage to the cloud through tiering.
Consider making this the topic of your next Information Governance committee meeting. If you need help framing the topic, shoot us an email and we’ll give you some talking points for achieving huge IT savings.
