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[TECH TIP] It’s All About The Data - -  Is It Better To Manage Your Data or Storage?

By Anon Anon posted Sep 07, 2016 06:44 PM

  

Managing Data - Your Companies Most Valuable Asset - is More Important as Opposed to the Storage Media.

It’s all about the data.  Data is the most valuable asset a business has, and the most important data lives on the mainframe. This critical information fuels the new apps and services that differentiate your business. And it’s rapidly growing, with each new app creating a new source of data. What’s more, usage demands are increasing as developers seek access to mainframe-based data to promote innovation.

In fact, many new apps are mobile- and customer-facing—making related workloads more unpredictable than ever. The result is mounting pressure on enterprise IT to help provide that data access is available 24/7/365. Consider this fact: 40% of organizations plan to implement more data projects, with a 2X increase in the number of organizations that have initiated data-driven projects since 2014[1].

Data Management Realities

Without a unified way to get ahead of non-stop demands for data, your organization could continue to experience multiple issues as it addresses this surge in data creation and consumption.

For example, from a data management perspective, you are probably:

  • Applying more resources to manage, administer and optimize the data lifecycle
  • Struggling to provide 24/7/365 availability of increasing numbers of apps and services

Storage Management Realities

As data continues to grow at exponential rates, it creates a continual need for more storage and more efficient use of existing resources—all while keeping an eye on rocketing costs and compliance requirements.

For example, from a storage management perspective, you are probably:

  • Struggling to learn and use multiple, niche utilities to manage proprietary, storage-specific offerings
  • Ensure storage resources are available and aligned with the needs of the business, which is a constant balancing act of allocations versus data lifecycle needs across IT groups.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

As IT professionals we want to make sure our customers have access to their data, NOT access to storage media. With data scattered everywhere, it’s more important than ever to deliver data insight, support innovation and deliver apps that delights users whenever and wherever they need it and in the format they need.

Applications shouldn’t have dependencies around the type of media on which the data is stored. Whether it is tape, disk or cloud media storage - - we really should understand the characteristics of the data on the media and ensure our customers can leverage the data without consideration around the type of media from which they are accessing.

Good data management can directly impact the bottom line of a company. The way businesses classify, store, control, recall and secure data is critical in supporting the business lines. In addition, analytics derived from data can be used to boost productivity, reduce risk and increase competitive advantage.

Therefore, a good data management approach from a storage perspective could help reduce the amount of time, experience and effort required to better manage, monitor and secure critical business data while enabling a more streamlined storage management practice.

 

Drill down into data management concepts:

  • Classifying Data. This most often involves tagging and determining importance and frequency of read/write of the data. Classifying data helps organizations prioritize storage techniques to be used for the various data types. Data can be tiered based on its classification with the most used data residing on the highest and most expensive storage media providing quickest and most secure recall.
  • Storing Data. Refers mostly to location and media type. Understanding of the various media types and capabilities for protecting the data will ensure the appropriate media with the appropriate cost structure is used for the data.
  • Data Lifecycle. Includes, but is not limited to, setting policies for retention like: how long does this data need to be kept. What happens to this data after it has met various policy criteria. What regulations apply to which data?  When do you need to archive older data when no longer needed on expensive, high-speed storage hardware?
  • Data Archive/Recall. Data archive and recall speeds can be critical to the business. Transaction data and archive level data are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to recall speed requirements. Regardless, data needs to be classified correctly and stored on appropriate media depending on the needs of the business applications that most often recall this data. 
  • Securing Data. Consider this: the barriers that keep malicious perpetrators out can also prevent your developers, mobile apps and data scientists from accessing required business data. Applying the correct security access controls to data is critical. Security involves preventing unauthorized people from accessing it as well as preventing accidental or intentional destruction, infection or corruption of information.  
  • Data Analytics. Consider analytics that can be applied to each of these categories to determine patterns of access and usage around the various classifications. Analytics can reveal insights that allow for adjustments as necessary to streamline data management for optimum business impact.

Your Goals: Achieving Effective Data and Storage Management

These data management principals listed above may seem pretty basic, but how these are applied can definitely impact the bottom line of the business. Your goals would then become:

  • Reduce the amount of time, experience and effort required to better manage, monitor and secure critical business data while enabling faster, protected access.
  • Manage data lifecycle to “keep the lights on,” employ flexible tools that enable you to optimize productivity, address compliance requirements and improve your ability to meet service-level agreements

  • Integrate critical data with business intelligence products and analytics applications that help important business processes to continue while protecting sensitive corporate assets

An Optimized Storage Infrastructure Saves You Time, Resources and Money

How do you know whether your data and storage management policies and practices are effective?  We can help. Click HERE to request our offer for a no-cost assessment, and make sure you’re getting the most from your storage investments and better understand if you’re providing value to your business.

In the meantime, Click HERE to view a video titled: “CA Vantage™ SRM Overview and Data Recoverability

 

[1] 2015 CA Sponsored Research--The State of Big Data Infrastructure: Benchmarking Global Big Data Users to Drive Future Performance.

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