Juggling Speed and Security

Information is a valuable asset for most organizations. Customer information, marketing data, manufacturing processes, and financial records can generate huge amounts of data each day; and all of it must be recoverable. Mission critical data must be available, instantaneously, whether it's from a primary or a backup site. Many companies are searching for the best way to protect and save their data while making it rapidly accessible.

Government regulations now state that companies must keep data that once was discarded. Regulations not only create the need to store more data, but also the need to quickly access that information. Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC 17a-4 and HIPAA have also impacted what and how company data is stored. Terrorism, natural disasters and hacking all contribute to the need for backups to be off-site or in redundant locations. In addition, many businesses need to replicate, back up and archive data created through email, e-commerce, customer resource management and supply chain management.

Impact

What costs can businesses incur if they're unable to retrieve data or systems in a timely manner? According to storage industry experts, the average company could lose over $50,000 per hour for downtime, while financial firms could lose over $6 million per hour. It's no wonder that Fortune 2500 companies have been adding network storage capabilities at a compound annual growth rate of 79 percent since 2001.

Until now, many companies have had only three choices: put their data at risk at just one location; store the data off-site on tape; or store the data in multiple locations using slow, insecure networks.

Technology Benefits

Local storage systems have evolved for everything from electronic faulting to real-time data mirroring. But to mitigate risks and manage data efficiently, companies also need the rapid and secure transfer of data between locations.

The advent of Fibre-channel technology has helped transform the functionality of existing equipment. Data can be stored safely off-site yet remains accessible in a timely manner. The difference is truly staggering: using a 100 Mbps Ethernet connection, it would take almost five days to backup or restore 5 Terabytes of information. Using a 2 Gbps Fibre-channel, 5 Terabytes of information can be restored in less than six hours.

According to www.storagesearch.com, "After the first decade of commercial use, Fibre-channel and SAN storage have become central foundations of storage infrastructure and are here to stay."

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