‘Data is king’; we have all heard this expression in the enterprise sphere. With increasing diversity in markets, and constantly changing buyer demands, it has become all the more vital for organizations to leverage data for market and monetary gains. Data, when acquired, needs to be stored in a secure hub, where it can be accessed seamlessly by anyone for whom it is required, in order to drive business goals and conclude projects.
The amount of data generated on a daily basis today is massive, and all of said data needs to be visible; that too in a multi-cloud environment. However, in tandem with this, data security is also a big concern, among others. Data is vital, this is for certain, and with the right approach to data storage and management, companies can manage their big and small data par excellence, making for better bottom lines and exponential growth.
NetApp, which is by far the biggest hybrid-cloud based data storage services firm, has been a leader in the enterprise storage sector for a while, and has eased data storage and management for companies of all sizes. With the advent of the cloud, the firm updated its services structure, with new storage options available for the cloud. However, while the cloud has been around for the better part of a decade now, it has not yet been optimized across the board. There are still challenges that make for some progress barriers for NetApp and its peers.
To get a better understanding of how today’s data management professionals can be better enabled, with NetApp in mind, here, we will be discussing the top 5 challenges faced by enterprise storage, and how they can be mitigated through NetApp training.
Inadequate Data Security
Protection of vital data is a major issue at the moment, with the unfortunate onset of malicious data theft-related practices and the potential for information leaks across various points in supply chains and such. In a previous blog post, we discussed how information security should be among the top priorities of enterprises that are bound to find it progressively more difficult to maintain the integrity of their data storage infrastructures.
Both internal and external threats to enterprise data are continuing to develop, with a marked increase in IoT-based loose ends threatening to relay sensitive data to external parties.
Automation, Optimization and Management Costs
The costs associated with storing the amount of data accumulated by even smaller enterprises can run into high figures, what with generally faster growth rates and rapidly diversifying buyer personas. This data then needs to be managed efficiently, making sure that the right data is delivered to the right departments within the enterprise infrastructure, for which a system needs to be constantly maintained.
Most importantly, the data acquisition process needs to be automated, in order to effectively accumulate, process and store data as will be needed by various teams. All of the above comes with a cost, which can become unmanageable if enterprises don’t develop more efficient data management practices.
Adherence to Legacy Storage
Legacy systems are, from a technological standpoint, the greatest barriers for progress. A great number of enterprises insist on legacy storage systems, which are far from scalable, and have a steadily devolving security framework in place, to protect the massive quantities of data that companies collect on a daily basis. This relates to the first point in the way that many of the data security breaches which occur are due to older systems being unable to provide adequate information security.
Incompatibility between On-Premises and Cloud Storage
Hybrid storage is used by enterprises transitioning into a dedicated cloud environment, as well as to increase the versatility of data storage. This is a double-edged sword though, since on-premises storage systems can sometimes have a lock-in feature, which not only prevents data transfer across multiple clouds, but also between on-premises and cloud storage.
The difference of APIs, protocols and data management tools is part of the incompatibility problem, which gives rise to the need for further data transfer and management tools.
Multiple Storage Environment Complexities
A series of storage environments, allocated to different data varieties brings with it a lot of management-related complexity. Efficient asset management is also a problem here, as multiple environments within, say, a single cloud storage. Additionally, multiple environments can also result in a greater need for security, as said environments could have been created by rogue users or elements.
More complexity generally means more work required to keep things running seamlessly, which in turn runs up the costs, once again.
Mitigating Storage Management Challenges through NetApp Training
NetApp and its integral technologies are steadily evolving, providing solutions to some of the global IT industry’s biggest challenges, going into the second half of 2018. Through selected NetApp training, with emphasis on the internal techno-centric issue when selecting the learning path, enterprises all over the world can comfortably dissolve the barriers to effective and scalable data storage.
NetApp has the hybrid cloud environment as its primary platform at the moment, which makes NetApp training the prime success driver for companies looking to make their data more secure, more scalable, better protected, and better segmented into adequate number of environments. Additionally, NetApp training delivers working knowledge of efficiency building, when it comes to data storage and management. This is why, to build a stronger data framework that has the potential to be future-proof, it is necessary to deliver NetApp training which not only makes all data types more manageable, but opens the doors for better, more secure storage bases.