In the `knowledge economy` of today, business success is as dependent on information as it is on operational and production expertise. Successfully managing, sharing and retrieving information has, as such, become a key business focus in recent years.
Web 2.0 has changed the way people use the Internet, turning it into a collaborative and participatory platform, and the benefits of this to ordinary citizens are clear in the value derived from social networks, wikis, blogs etc.
Businesses have also seen the enormous benefits of collaboration, and are increasingly starting to utilise collaboration platforms, such as Microsoft SharePoint, in order to harness the power of Web 2.0 within their organisations to allow users to easily create, manage and share information.
However, in the `Age of Information`, the one obstacle that still remains is efficiently managing the sheer volume of information stored on complex database structures. The amount of information shared and the sheer increase of sharing large files have meant that many organisations are faced with performance issues as a result of overloading their SharePoint database.
Comments Chris Hathaway, Director at Soarsoft Africa: "Some companies have tried to sidetrack the problem and costs associated with maintaining performance, backup up and disaster recovery of large amounts of information on complex SharePoint databases by placing restrictions on the size of files that employees are allowed to load onto the database - but this is inevitably met with dissatisfaction from employees, is counter-productive, and is not a long-term solution to the problem."
Instead of delaying the inevitable - organisations should instead make use of storage solutions that offer intelligent archiving functionality.
Metalogix`s StoragePoint is a single solution that allows organisations to increase SharePoint performance and scalability - without adding any hardware. It externalises the actual content, while keeping only the metadata and references to the BLOB (Binary Large Object) stored on the SharePoint SQL database. By keeping content out of the SQL database and implementing tiered storage with intelligent archiving, StoragePoint allows organisations to decrease the size of their SharePoint database by over 90%, offering scalability, easier manageability and increased performance.
Says Hathaway: "Many organisations will easily exceed the recommended storage capacity of SharePoint in a very short space of time. StoragePoint makes sense because it stores content outside of the SharePoint SQL database - onto any direct attached; network or cloud-based storage platform in a flat file structure that is inexpensive and easy to manage. This in turn greatly reduces the size of the SharePoint database, making it easier to manage and improving performance on SharePoint."
By taking the load off the SharePoint database, organisations are able to not only increase performance - but save money too. StoragePoint`s cost-effective tiered storage means that the fastest, most expensive storage platforms are reserved only for actively used content, while leveraging slower and less-expensive storage for archiving and content that is accessed infrequently. Notes Hathaway: "Content can also be moved automatically to lower tiers of storage based on particular characteristics - such as age.
"While this sort of functionality is available from expensive document management solutions, StoragePoint enables organisations to leverage this without having to purchase additional solutions."
For System Administrators, storage management with StoragePoint is a cinch - it is easy to configure and operate, and keep track of exactly what is happening with the logging, system health monitoring and reporting tools.
StoragePoint also addresses compliance and security needs. It enables greater control, audit-ability and find-ability of the organisation`s content, by allowing for more data to be kept for longer periods of time and providing a second tier of compliance at the hardware level, by facilitating the use of "WORM" (Write Once Read Many) and content addressable compliant storage when applicable.
Comments Hathaway: "We have used the deeper compliance and records management functionality on SharePoint to great effect at one of southern Africa`s largest municipalities, where strict compliance with National Archive Regulations is required on complex long-term file plans. We also provided fast search and access to records - some of which are up to 25 years old."
In the modern business environment, so saturated with information, storage is becoming one of the key challenges for organisations. While the costs of storage itself are continually declining, it is the management cost associated with storing large amounts of information on complex platforms that is becoming increasingly expensive. Solutions such as StoragePoint, that make managing the SharePoint platform dramatically simpler and less resource intensive, are providing organisations with a significant return on investment (ROI) as well as offering useful functionality that meets compliance and security needs.
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