Why storage performance is the key to enhancing business resilience
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC and DR) work together to ensure that, in the event of an IT failure, business can continue operating for the duration of the recovery period. These capabilities have long been a gold-standard for on-premise data storage and were the preserve of companies with the demands and budgets for premium solutions. But they have now become a necessity for businesses of all types.
Data growth is putting business continuity at risk
Since 2019, data volumes in mid-sized US enterprises have grown by 25%, whereas IT budgets only increased by 11%. This closing gap between data growth rate and available storage capacity is challenging for IT departments. However, data growth is predicted to surge in the next five years, resulting in a data explosion that IT teams are simply not equipped to manage.
Insufficient capacity also hampers an infrastructure’s ability to flex during spikes in data volume – increasing the likelihood that a storage failure could cause a business outage at just the time when businesses are relying on systems most. These outages can be expensive and time-consuming to remediate¹ and they are the main cause of critical data loss, something that has already resulted in the closure of a number of businesses².
Storage in a Flash
All Flash Arrays (AFA) are providing scalable capacity to deal with growing data volumes. Flash storage enables data to flow to business processes faster, allowing existing infrastructure to be better leveraged – boosting cost-efficiencies across the board. But how does this mitigate the risks of business continuity?
Case study: full-service hospital, Florida
A large suburban hospital in Tampa, Florida was running an eight-year-old system that was reaching capacity but functioning. However, the manufacturer announced it would no longer be supporting the hospital’s software and hardware. This created an urgent situation as the hospital’s patient data integrity and privacy were absolutely paramount – not only were backups becoming unreliable, but the business’s core systems would soon be losing their legal compliance.
The hospital decided to replace its on-premise systems with the flash-powered Hitachi Protection Platform to ensure constant security of data; and implemented the Hitachi Content Platform for enterprise-scale cloud mobility and data management.
From day one, the new reliable Hitachi platform ensured the hospital had automated secure backup to a second offsite location, built-in disaster-recovery and business-continuity – while also cutting backup-and-restore time in half. Thanks to advances in performance and scalability, storage will continue to be cost-effectively scaled to meet any future growth in data volumes while ensuring compliance and secure operation.
Edge Solutions
The gap between data growth and business storage capacity will continue to close and the risks of downtime will increase. This makes it critical for organizations to capitalize on enhanced storage technologies and management tools that enhance business resilience – such as those offered by Hitachi – to ensure performance and continuity throughout potential disasters.
At Edge Solutions, we deliver a service that not only aims to solve the mounting challenges facing data-driven businesses, but one that enables the whole enterprise to secure and maximize the value of their data – all while fitting within your IT budget.
To find out how Edge Solutions can connect you with the Hitachi solutions that will help you to prioritize performance and avoid outages, contact us to speak to one of our experts.