With the ever-increasing amount of data produced by IT systems within organisations, managing that data has become more of a challenge than merely archiving it.
This is the opinion of Heinz Stephan, director of products and technologies at Comztek, the IT systems distributor, who adds that today`s modern storage systems provide a diverse range of solutions to organisations of all sizes - and at significantly reduced prices than their predecessors.
"With declining prices for storage equipment comes the opportunity to grow one`s storage capacity according to company needs," he says.
"Storage refers to the physical media used, as well as the enablement of storage through software tools. Storage essentially refers to the archiving of company or individual data. The more data a company has, the more data management it requires. For most companies, throwing storage capability at an ever-increasing demand has become the norm. Right now, the challenge that has arisen is that of managing the data while trying to keep costs down."
This is particularly important for mid-sized companies which need a bulk storage capability at server level or through some type of direct attached storage provision. With this type of set up, the security, accessibility and reliability of data becomes critical.
Enter network-attached storage (NAS).
"NAS is more widely used and often preferred to other types of storage systems because it fulfils archiving needs, does not require complex configuration and is extremely affordable. A NAS device acts as just another network device and is simple to use.
"NAS provides good scalability and storage capacity that can be anywhere up to 3TB. What`s more, NAS ensures reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and better economies of scale than other direct attached systems," he says.
"Due to the need for fast recovery and access times, inline backups and storage are increasingly becoming viable and affordable. It is worthwhile mentioning that approximately 30% of online stored data in most organisations, is not actually required online due to its frequency of access, duplicate files and unwanted content.
"Online stored data uses up a company`s online resources and incurs massive backup costs. However, with the tools available, this data can be moved to readily available inline storage (NAS) where necessary. This does not necessarily replace tape archiving of data that is of appropriate nature," he points out.
In the end, data storage has to ensure that the information remains secure, virus free and available when required. Companies will always need more storage space and this is where NAS devices may come into play.
"Furthermore, these systems ensure improved TCO, remain cost-effective during the lifecycle of the equipment, and provide scalability as the business grows," he concludes.
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