Archiving driven by data growth, compliance

The growth in data and drive for regulatory compliance will push archiving to the forefront of enterprise storage concerns, a study has suggested.

Disaster recovery, archiving, and backup were the top storage related issues for the next few months, respondents to a survey by BridgeHead Software have said.

The number of companies with over a terabyte of data on their primary storage has grown from 59 per cent last year to 73 per cent this year, with one in five organisations holding over 10 terabytes.

Patrick Dowling, BridgeHead's senior vice president for business development and product strategy, said he expects data growth to continue, especially as more complex forms of data hit enterprise, such as voice over IP and more use of images and video, which will need to be centrally managed by IT, rather than kept spread throughout an organisation, he said.

But some 30 to 50 per cent of that data will likely not be accessed again, the study showed.

The main drivers for archiving - be it file, email or database - were disaster recovery at 75 per cent, regulatory compliance at 58 per cent and data growth at 51 per cent.

"Data growth is a firm driver," said Dowling. "But another factor is that the bar has been raised in data availability expectations."

Despite these concerns, some 15 per cent of firms do no archiving at all, and 45 per cent still do it manually, the study found. "Companies don't' have a full perspective on what archiving is and how it should be done," he said. "It's not just protecting data but also keeps it accessible without having to back it up or store it on high-cost storage."

He said properly archiving data will also allow it to be managed and accessible, necessary for full regulatory compliance.

Some 84 per cent said they wanted more energy efficient products, showing a focus on cutting power costs and improving green credentials. "It's a confluence of events, with a lot of popular culture concerns translating to corporate attention," he said. "It's also an attractive thing to tout because it happens to coincide with saving quite a lot of money."

Email to a friend

Print this page

Social Bookmark this article: What is this?

Digg

Delicious

Reddit

StumbleUpon

Slashdot

Google

Facebook