Business Connexion's Sakkie Burger and Kamal Ravjee discuss why a good storage strategy is essential to creating a zero-defect data centre.
With all the talk of the sheer volume of data that the world will be utilising, it's tempting for enterprises to look at the big data revolution as a numbers game. More data means you need more storage space and processing power. End of story. Or is it?
The problem with this thinking is that not all data is created equal. Most of the data the world creates is wholly unstructured - emails, Word documents, PDFs, image files, social media posts and much more. The single biggest challenge that companies face when it comes to data is making optimum use of it - 70% of companies, for example, have no organised means of finding the right data.
Sifting through all of this data to find enterprise value is more than just a question of brute force; it requires a radical shift from traditional data storage strategies to ones that focus on data economics.
This is particularly important in the South African environment, in which companies face strict legal requirements for data. In order to be compliant with regulations, businesses find themselves having to store certain data on tape, often for in excess of 10 years. Failing to determine which of their data is critical can have significant legal and financial consequences.
The tried-and-tested storage model of the past - with one team procuring storage and another backing data up onto tape - cannot stand up to the demands of the modern enterprise. This model does not account for the differences in data importance, leading to extensive downtime as irrelevant, often duplicate data is backed up on expensive storage, often at the expense of business-critical data.
Storage strategy has always been a key priority of Business Connexion. As Africa's largest provider of data centre solutions, we are committed to developing a zero-defect environment in which our large-scale clients can procure data quickly and efficiently, without any delays. At the same time, our strategy must be scalable enough to cater to those clients with less stringent data needs.
We have looked at how we could improve our current installed base with one that managed data more productively and have included the capability to deliver different tiers of service that we deliver to our clients. IBM emerged as the vendor with the best and most innovative approach to storage, with its emphasis on data economics.
IBM's storage solutions offer improved speed, simplicity and efficiency by automating the movement of data between different tiers. These solutions make use of virtualised storage for an optimised infrastructure that maximises data performance, reduces space costs and improves security.
Our partnership with IBM enables us to continue to meet the varying demands of our clients with the click of a button. Our upgraded infrastructure will be proactive in the management of storage, able to pick up problems before they happen.
Ultimately, our objective with the choice of IBM as a partner is to pass along to our clients the benefits of a truly zero-defect environment: no downtime, quality service, excellent response times, cost savings and the business continuity they need to grow.
This upgrade will allow us explore what additional services and solutions we can develop for our clients. How, for example, can we bring soft layer capability into Africa? Our storage strategy unlocks a whole world of possibilities around what we can do.
To learn how you can adapt your storage strategy to make the most of data analytics and the cloud, register for our event taking place 12 March in Joburg and 17 March in Cape Town. More info: Intelligence in the Moment Event
