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Data is the most important asset of the modern organization. When staying “Always On” is a top priority, reactive responses to data threats and breaches are no longer enough.
As what is considered mission-critical to a functioning business changes with the times, keeping all data safe and available is increasingly important to business continuity. A comprehensive data storage solution will protect data and ensure its availability in the event of unplanned data loss or a cyber-attack.
All Data Is Created Equal
The implementation of data protection regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union means that all data requires the same high-level protection and availability.
The exponential growth of data volumes related to data regulation requirements and the remote work boom is creating a new challenge for businesses now required to back up petabytes rather than terabytes of data. However, choosing the correct data storage solution ensures there is no compromise when it comes to data protection and availability.
Downtime Is Money
Any downtime can adversely affect a company’s bottom line. This also applies to the time it takes to recover from an outage or to retrieve data that has been corrupted or deleted.
A low Recovery Time Objective (RTO) reduces revenue lost due to downtime and can increase profits, provided data is made available in the shortest timeframe possible.
It is a popular misconception that a high performing data protection architecture ensures an exceedingly high throughput when actual data backup takes place. Although true and important, the exact opposite is generally seen when it comes to retrieval of backed up data.
The best possible RTO takes place when organizations can retrieve data at the same rate as their high-performing backup.
Tiered Availability Is a Thing of the Past
It is important that organizations have access to their data 100 percent of the time. Past industry standards dictated a tiered approach to data availability, but during these changing times, these legacy methods cannot guarantee that data will be readily available when needed.
Modern organizations cannot afford to classify data into tiers. Not because of cost, but rather because all data is vital. Data segregation is no longer an option.
Data availability is essential to organizations that use it to glean valuable insights through historical and current analysis. When data isn’t readily available, it can’t be used to generate insights that keep companies on track to meet strategic goals, calculate growth, and ensure optimal decision-making.
Organizations should be able to access and analyze data at any time to assist in making informed decisions. They should also ensure data analysis can only be conducted with safe, readily available data.
Is It Time for a Reevaluation?
Your company’s data protection strategy should not be treated as just an insurance tick box. If your current process does not take the importance of data and its protection into account, it may be time for an update. A great data protection plan will keep all data safe and offer an acceptable time frame for retrieval should data loss occur.
Data is constantly changing, and it’s easy for an organization’s processes to lag behind as other matters take priority. Different data and applications need different types of protection, making an all-in-one solution challenging to find. Consider data protection options carefully in order to protect dynamic data, safeguard cost savings, and eliminate complexity and siloed views. Just make sure you have solutions in place that will allow your business to continue running if a catastrophe hits.