Ten Recommendations for Simplified, Intelligence-Based Storage Management

Data is the lifeblood of every organization, and as people and applications continue to generate more and more data, companies are struggling to keep up with capacity demand. This problem is felt most acutely with unstructured data – the fastest growing component of today’s data center. To keep pace with and take advantage of the data, organizations are shifting to scale-out NAS architectures, object storage and advanced analytics that harness the power of Hadoop. But, to make this transformation a success requires automation and storage intelligence.

In this slideshow, Data Dynamics‘ CEO Piyush Mehta outlines 10 key recommendations for simplified, intelligence-based storage management.

Automation and Storage Intelligence

Click through for 10 recommendations organizations should consider with regards to storage management, as identified by Piyush Mehta, CEO of Data Dynamics.

Take the Guesswork Out of Migrations

Manual migrations can produce outages, data loss and business disruption. An automated solution with full migration project tracking, an intuitive user interface, global cross-platform views and validation throughout can reduce risk in the migration process, allowing companies to be agile with their data.

Plan Ahead for Refreshes

Tech refreshes are like death and taxes — painful but inevitable. Being prepared with an automated solution for planning, executing and validating a comprehensive data movement plan can take the risk, effort and anxiety out of refreshes, allowing companies to choose and deploy a cutting edge new solution with confidence.

Bring Down the Cost of Migration

Data migration represents a huge hidden cost when it comes to storage management. Few companies anticipate the expense in terms of staff time, costly consultants and disruption to the business when migrating data. An automated solution can help organizations prepare for the effort and get it done for less.

Think About Data Globally

Companies today operate globally with internal and external partners needing instant access to information in order to function. Keeping data locked away in local silos limits value derived from these key assets. IT organizations need to see and understand data across data centers, branch locations and third-party organizations. An automated global migration framework can orchestrate data movement centrally and put data where it needs to be to be used effectively.

Reduce Cutover Windows

One of the biggest challenges with data movement is the disruption associated with cutting over to the new target. Synchronizing the source and target during a period of incremental copies, chipping away at locked, open or changed files can significantly reduce user disruption when it comes time to redirect traffic.

Reduce Storage Costs with Tiering and Archiving

Without good visibility and archival policies, companies put most of their data on high-performance systems, but this is a waste for infrequently used data. Analyzing the environment with regards to data types, usage patterns and performance needs can help to identify data that will live happily on slower, cheaper storage, and reserve the expensive capacity for data that truly needs it. Policy-driven storage management can set criteria for movement and execute the plan based on defined rules.

Increase Management Flexibility with Clustered File Storage

NAS systems that are built on a clustered architecture allow data to move among physical locations without user impact. Products like EMC Isilon, NetApp Clustered DataONTap and Microsoft DFS are examples of this approach. Each provides high scalability, data location virtualization and the ability to make changes to data structures and layout easily and with lower disruption than standard systems.

Avoid Too Many Tools, Scripts and Products

There are many reasons for having multiple vendors, systems and processes within a storage environment, ranging from strategic multi-sourcing to the chaos of distributed decision making. A single solution for data management and migration can help to get consistently good results in a complex environment.

Validate Data Movement When It’s Complete

It’s one thing to move data, it’s another to know for sure that all of it’s been moved successfully. Having a tracking and reporting engine that can quickly compare the source and target, identify any exceptions and close the gap confidently makes the difference between a smoothly managed migration and chaos.

Use the Cloud as an Opportunity

Moving data to a public or private cloud can increase scalability, access and agility, but knowing what and how to move can be a challenge. An automated, policy driven data management solution can help to identify good candidates for cloud storage, and execute the move, including metadata programming, data conversion and accelerated transmission to the cloud target.