All you need to know about Data Storage Management
When it comes to data storage, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, so determine the amount and type of data you have and why you need to store it before you decide how or where to store it.
Field Engineer Digital Platform can help companies manage data storage
We can help you with a range of tasks in your data center thanks to freelance network engineers. Next, we’ll look at some specific ways that they can benefit your business.
Field Engineer connects companies with freelancers and engineers looking for on-demand work. Having a simplified approach to finding trustworthy employees is an obvious advantage for companies.
What are the best methods of creating a solid data storage management strategy?
These top suggestions on how to choose the right data storage solution(s) for your organization, as well as how to ensure your data is properly protected and retrievable, came from dozens of storage and data management experts who were surveyed.
- Be aware of your data
Developing a data-storage strategy that is both effective and cost-efficient requires organizations to understand the business value and criticality of their data.
Ask yourself these questions when coming up with your data storage management policy:
- Is there a deadline for getting the lost data back?
- Can I access data as fast as I need?
- What is the recommended retention period?
- What level of security is required?
- Are there any regulatory requirements that must be followed?
- Data that is not structured shouldn’t be ignored
Consider how you might want to combine multi-structured data from your transactional systems with semi-structured or unstructured data from your email servers, network file systems, etc. It is important to ensure that the data management platform you choose will let you combine all these types without needing to create data models for months or years.
- Compliance requirements to understand
The bar for compliance and security is very high for companies that are publicly traded or operate within highly regulated industries, such as finance or healthcare.
To make sure that your data is secure and compliant when you outsource data storage and management, ensure that your managed services provider possesses the necessary credentials. Otherwise, you could be subject to serious fines.
- Establish a policy for the retention of data
Both internal data governance and compliance can be achieved by setting the right data retention policies. It is necessary to keep some data for many years, while it is only necessary to retain other data for a short period.
In designing processes, identify the most important data of the organization and prioritize storage management resources accordingly. The storage and archiving of email data for one particular group say the executives, may be more important than storing the email data for the entire company. These priorities must be set to make sure that management resources are concentrated on the most important tasks.
- Your data should be matched with a solution, not reversed
DAS (Direct Attached Storage), SAN (Storage Area Network), or NAS (Network Attached Storage) are usually the only options left to those who are not sure what the right option is. This is not enough.
Fiber Channel SANs can handle low-latency reads and writes on structured databases, but unstructured video workloads shouldn’t be handled by them. In contrast to buying a one-size-fits-all solution, smart buyers take the workload characteristics into account when choosing a storage solution.
Likewise, you should find a solution that allows you to choose whether your data is stored on-premises or in the cloud. This solution makes it possible for you to leverage your existing investments via network shares and SharePoint.
The data management and storage software you choose, if you have a mobile workforce like many businesses now, must support both mobile and virtual platforms, and provide a seamless experience across all platforms, including mobile editing capabilities as well as desktop and laptop interfaces.
A Managed Server Network Design & Consulting Service is an efficient method of optimizing data storage.
- You should be able to locate your data once you’ve stored it
To obtain the most value from your data daily and in urgent situations, such as when your data is needed for litigation, it is essential to have access to your data easily and to get accurate results instantly.
After all, what is the point of archiving your data if you cannot find the information when you need it?
- Create a disaster recovery plan and test it continuously.
There’s nothing more important than data recovery. The best backup in the world cannot save you if you cannot recover your files. Regardless of which method or methods of backup you choose, you should test them often and not just once or twice a year.
Every week, perform random recovery exercises. Make sure you perform disaster recovery testing and audit your data pools regularly to be sure you can recover your data.
You should always follow the 3-2-1 rule. Always keep three copies of everything you care about in at least two formats, one of which should be offsite.
How does the 3-2-1 rule apply to backups?
A 3-2-1 rule dictates that there should be at least three copies or versions of data stored on two different mediums, one of which should be off-site. The three elements will be examined as well as their respective areas of concern.
- 3 copies or versions: You can recover your data from accidents that occur to any combination of versions if you have at least three different versions of your data. A good backup system will have many more copies than three.
- 2 different media: It is not a good idea to have both copies of your data on the same medium. Apple’s Time Machine is a good example of this. If you use Disc Utility to split your hard drive into two virtual volumes, you can fool Time Machine by backing up the first volume to the “second” volume. The backup will be ruined if the main drive fails. That is why you should always create a backup on a different media than the original.
- 1 backup off-site: In one conference, a speaker said that he didn’t like tapes because he placed them on top of a server, and they melted when the server caught fire. The tape was not the problem; the problem was that he placed his backups on top of his server. Keeping your backup copies in a separate location from the thing you are backing up, or at least one version of them is a good practice.
