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The Flevy Blog covers Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
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Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Cloud Strategy Template (42-page Word document). This document provides both an outline of the various sections you should include in a document which describes your organisations cloud strategy and extensive example content. The example content is drawn from a real world example cloud strategy for a mid to large organisation who have invested [read more]
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There are lots of ways to meet the data storage needs of your business, but some will be a better fit for your organization than others.
To help you decide, here is a rundown of the options to consider and the aspects of each which will make them worth picking.
Local storageIf you run a smaller firm, having a local storage solution may be the most cost-effective option. A good combination of flexibility and accessibility is offered by an on-site NAS (network-attached storage) device, which can be configured with as much space as you need and will let you share files between different workstations and accessories speedily.
Of course if you are handling sensitive data in house, you will need to take security seriously and appreciate that a NAS or other in-house storage setup will have innate limitations, not just in terms of space but also connectivity, processing power and expandability.
In the past decade the explosion of cloud computing services has give businesses of all sizes a new way to handle their IT needs without having to buy and maintain costly hardware themselves.
Cloud storage services are widely used by commercial and domestic customers alike, benefitting from exceptional scalability and proving to be very cost effective. From simple file storage to running an entire SQL database remotely, the cloud can be adapted to accommodate whatever requirements you might have. You can even track SQL server performance counters and make optimizations if you want to manage major aspects of your storage, or leave the tinkering to the provider.
Many businesses find it convenient to combine a blend of on-site and cloud-powered storage in order to ensure that they have suitable access to the data resources they need to operate.
In a perfect configuration, a hybrid solution will be entirely seamless from the perspective of end-users, even if behind the scenes there is a lot of wrangling going on to make sure that data is juggled effectively between local and remote hardware.
Hybrid storage is especially effective as a form of disaster recovery planning, since it can be used to automate data backup and prevent costly data loss.
Another perk of this type of data storage is that it allows for a greater degree of agility. It may be sensible to keep data which is regularly accessed on local storage, while making use of the cloud to store files that are only needed on occasion. This allows for superior performance and also makes storage costs more manageable.
While a lot of data storage is handled on fixed hardware, plenty of businesses still rely on portable storage of one kind or another.
From small and convenient memory sticks to high capacity external hard drives, such accessories could help with inter-office file transfers if network speeds are low, while also providing another backup option to account for serious, unforeseen hardware dilemmas.
One thing to remember when rolling out portable storage is that data loss can also arise from unprotected devices entering circulation, so take steps to prevent your firm falling victim to this all too common type of mishap.
You should always plan carefully before adopting a data storage solution for your business, because rushing this process could come back to bite you.
Always work closely with members of your IT team, or consult with an expert advisor, to make sure that the path you take is sensible not just for your needs today, but also takes into account how they might change in the future.
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