Rolling dice might be an innocent enough diversion for most visitors to casinos, but not when it comes to protecting sensitive enterprise data. According to 2,200 IT decision makers worldwide who took part in the 2016 Dell Global Data Protection Index Study, only about 1 in 10 companies have what are considered mature data protection: short recovery times; solid backup infrastructure; modern backup systems; and off-site replication.
Data protection: More vital than ever
No one has to tell IT professionals that data is exploding. They can see it all around them. Structured data, ka-boom. Unstructured data, ka-boom. Mobile data, ka-boom-boom-boom. Forget petabytes, even exabytes. By 2020, some experts think the world’s total data will total 40 zettabytes, while others think the world might generate that much each year.
Much of this data growth is mission-critical, generated by virtual machines, mobile apps and the ever-growing Internet of Things. Plus, there’s an increasing number of compliance requirements for data archiving, especially in finance and healthcare.
At the same time, the potential for data losses has never been greater. Data today needs protection from corruption, cyber intrusions, hardware failures, software errors and power losses, to name some of the biggest threats. What’s at stake? Costly business disruptions, diminished brand reputations, expensive litigation, regulatory penalties and reduced market capitalizations. And what is the average cost of data loss? Nearly $1 million!
Why “one-size-fits-all” solutions don’t work
When we’re talking data protection service levels, all data is not the same. That’s because organizations have wide-ranging combinations of data growth, data mobility and varied SLA requirements. And that’s not to mention different workloads and consumption models: on-premise, virtualized, hybrid cloud and native cloud. So it’s impossible for one solution to be optimized for all situations.
What’s more, data must be protected across a continuum, spanning continuous availability, replication, snapshots, backup and archiving requirements. Organizations with multiple data-protection vendors can increase their risk because having two or more vendors can create coverage gaps and, in the case of an intrusion, finger-pointing. According to the Dell-sponsored study, about two-thirds of respondents use two or more suppliers, despite evidence that data loss, costs and downtime rise as vendor numbers rise.
Then there are vulnerabilities posed by outdated technology approaches, such as tape backups, fragmented across the organizational landscape. These can impose unneeded costs of time, money and performance against recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs).
Solution: Purpose-built data protection, tailored to specific enterprise requirements
Standardization on a single, proven vendor platform can simplify IT staff time and costs, while reducing risks. Take medical-device maker Boston Scientific, for example. It chose to standardize on a single data protection platform, the Dell Data Domain, across its entire global enterprise, saving $100,000 a month in tape costs and greatly simplifying its once-fragmented storage capabilities. This also saves IT time so they can focus on more-strategic projects.
Today, data protection can take advantage of economical and highly scalable flash and cloud storage technologies. These can be fine-tuned to provide greater performance and solution flexibility, especially when combined with auto-tiering and de-duping. One example is the Dell Data Domain storage solution.
With models sized to match a wide range of data protection needs, this platform offers scalable, reliable and cloud-enabled protection storage for cost-effective data backup, data archive and disaster recovery. Compared to competing solutions, its validated performance metrics include: 1.5 times faster; 5 times more streams; 7 times more scalable; and, via flash, up to 20 times faster when restoring data.
And integrating the Dell Data Domain solution with Data Protection Suite software delivers the fastest and most reliable performance available so companies can meet all of their service level requirements.
Don’t roll the dice on data protection any longer
Find out where your company compares to the firms that responded to the 2016 Dell Global Data Protection Index Study Report. Get the report’s highlights in a quick-to-read, color infographic or download a full copy. You can also watch an informative, three-minute video to learn more about the Dell Data Protection portfolio to help you decide if it suits your needs.
