The majority of companies out there admit to wanting a Big Data system as a part of their layout, but ultimately have nothing to show for these desires. There have been many failed implementations despite lots of money spent on resources to help. You might say that many businesses have the best intentions when comes to incorporating a data management plan, yet intention without action is arguably useless at the end of the day. You might wonder why companies fail to follow through on their desires for a Big Data system. Well, the answer is really quite simple. The amount of data out there is staggering, and trying to manage it all would be like trying to boil the vast ocean. You can imagine how difficult-if not impossible-that would be!
Many question if the cloud would be a good solution, and if everyone should just get started on moving their data up there. Or perhaps virtualization? Would that be the answer? These two tools are valuable, but the question stands on whether or not they are the best way to utilize company resources. What companies really need is a tool that will aid in organizing data into appropriate categories. In other words, this tool would be able to filter out what data should be implemented in order to create the most value for the company.
As stated above, the majority of corporations view their data as simply a cost center, aiding in the draining of company resources. As human nature would have it, a lot of times the attitudes in reference to existing data reflects the heart of "out with the old, in with the new," and new projects that allow for more capacity or faster processing take precedence in time and funding. It is as if the old data is a bothersome reality, always needing a little extra attention and focus, demanding greater capacity, and continuously needing backups and protection. What companies forget to keep at the forefront of their minds however, is the fact that taking care of this old and “bothersome” data is a great way to clear up space on the primary storage, and who doesn’t appreciate that? It also aids in generating a faster backup process (with a reduced backup size), which is again, a bonus for any company! It should not be so quickly forgotten that this nagging and consistently needy data is essentially the ESSENCE of the company. Would you believe that this “cost center” is also where it gains some of its income? If companies kept these points in their minds, we would not be seeing such poor practices when it comes to data management. One thing is clear however, and that is the point that initiative with managing data can be difficult, and many view the overwhelming ocean of growing data and the daunting task of trying to manage it as too great a calling to handle.
However, IT departments and administrators must bear in mind that there are tools out there to help them classify and organize data, which ultimately will be their proverbial life-boat when it comes time to accepting the challenge of managing data. Look at it this way. Let's say you are trying to find every single chemical engineer on earth. Does that sound a bit overwhelming? The question is, how would you go about doing this? After all, there are over 7 billion people on this planet! Where do you begin? Do you profile EVERY person? Of course not. What you would likely do, in order to simplify this complex process, is organizing people into broad groups, maybe by profession. After that, you would probably do something like research what particular people in that profession graduated with a degree in engineering. Though basic, you can use these same principles when narrowing down data and trying to sort through the piles of information in a company. One must use their intelligence and business knowledge to better grasp corporate data, and in return, this will help companies benefit from their data assets. In order to do this, there are tools available to help administrators better comprehend and manage their data.
These tools exist to give IT departments the upper hand in managing their spheres. Can you imagine trying to manage large amounts of company data on your own? Luckily, we don’t have to do such things, and we live in an age in which a variety of solutions are available to help companies not only survive, but thrive. These tools are out there to empower IT teams to successfully weather the storms and changing tides of data types and volumes. After using such tools, companies often experience improved storage capacity, less costs associated with backup and data protection -- and let’s not forget compliance! Compliance is a hot topic, and with the help of appropriate data management solutions, companies will be guaranteed to meet the various regulatory compliance rules in today’s business world.
In closing, it is important to note that more networking tools will not do anything close to what the appropriate data management solutions can do. Companies should be looking for solutions that can help them as well with tracking, classifying, and organizing file systems over their whole lifespan. When the right tools get into the right hands, IT managers are better able to do their jobs!
Guest blogger post:
About the author: Jason Zhang is the product marketing person for Rocket Software's Backup, Storage, and Cloud solutions.