Technology revolutionises data storage

How do you improve your data storage?

Derek Locke, CIO for the New Zealand Defence Force, told an audience of peers at an August event for MIS Magazine that data generated by email and associated data storage concerns were an enduring headache.

"If anyone knows of any way to solve this problem, I'd be happy to hear your ideas - just don't send me an email about it," said Locke.

Locke is not alone in his concerns. Thanks to data generators such as email, video files, and IP telephony systems that convert voice messages to data, businesses now have more data to store and are increasingly required by law to store it so that it can be re-accessed if needed. So what are the smartest data storage solutions and where is data storage headed in the future?

If your business is small, you probably write or copy data from PC hard drives to DVDs, tapes, flash drives or cartridges. These solutions are adequate, but evolving. Bigger capacity storage media and technologies, fail-safe storage hardware, and hosted storage solutions that by-pass the need for the 'DIY' approach are all forward-facing options, say storage specialists.

New standards for DVD media include the Sony Blu-ray disk of up to 100 gigabytes capacity; and the competing HD (high density) DVD, a digital optical media disk promoted by Toshiba, NEC, and Sanyo. Roger Cockayne, executive director for storage solution specialist Revera, says technically, analysts can argue either way for these standards; whichever is dominant is likely to depend on marketing.

Meanwhile, while Iomega storage devices are good for small businesses because they have adequate capacity, speed, and businesses can segregate data on the drives, says Cockayne, it's not always ideal to transport DVDs, flash drives and cartridges 'by hand' as they can get into the wrong hands, or melt in high heat. He says tape storage can also be problematic as it takes twice as long to read from tape as to write to it, and a tape reader has to be available at the location and time [is needed] for data recovery.

Businesses also need to think about what kind of data is being stored and what they will need handy access to, says storage experts. For example, most businesses store basic data but not server systems or applications, so if a server goes down a computer technician is needed to reset it and re-input system data. This can take a week or more, effectively bringing the computer operations of a business to a grinding halt and generally acting as a big wake-up call for growing businesses.

Cockayne says stored emails can be hard to access because Microsoft's Outlook email software "doesn't lend itself" to manipulation or easy recovery, and IP telephony systems that store voice and video messages as data then create additional retrieval challenges.

"The beast called capacity has been beaten; the challenge now is how to open the front of data and get [hundreds] of users reading and writing to stored data at once," explains Cockayne.

So how can businesses go about buying 'future proof' and fail-safe storage solutions?

One answer is to store all systems and data virtually with an external storage provider who knows exactly where single items of data are stored and can make that data available to businesses via an online connection. A business can then download stored data from anywhere there is internet access and two copies of the same data can be held separately. Insurance companies increasingly underwrite properly stored data, says Cockayne.

Thanks to broadband internet access, these hosted storage solutions are becoming more affordable for smaller businesses, although some providers warn that 'you get what you pay for' with cheaper deals. Costs depend on the amount of data stored, the access needed, and the software and service tools the host offers, but range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands a month.

Wayne Goss, country manager systems and technology group for IBM, says IBM helps businesses install their own storage management software with set policies around what data is stored, who can access it, and when.

"More clients are adopting intelligent storage infrastructure that is simplistic and directly attaches storage needs to external storage area networks and management functions," says Goss.

Owned storage hardware and software obviously has a one-off cost and Goss says two of IBM's most popular products offer around half a terabyte of data storage and fibre channel access for between $25,000 and $35,000 each.

He says there are three specific business issues around business data storage going forward: the requirement for 24/7 computer network operation, new government regulatory compliance requirements, and business resilience.

"Clients that need 24/7 operation can no longer take systems down to do a daily backup. [New] solutions take snapshots of data storage without interrupting processes," explains Goss.