Cheap & Secure Data Stores

Practical advice on cutting costs, securing the SAN and replicating data for disaster recovery.

Executive Editor , Computerworld |

Sure, we could talk about storage virtualization, but I'm not sure it really exists. So let's talk about something real:

• Storage demands are doubling every year.

• IT budgets aren't.

• Data is valuable.

• Valuable data could be stolen or lost.

That's why this special report covers "cheap and secure" data storage. OK, there really is no such thing as cheap storage, but there are ways to cut costs. Unfortunately, you have to spend money -- on storage networking -- to save money in the long haul. But you can make a business case for this spending by demonstrating just how costly data downtime is.

Think of a customer relationship management system. It's just a white elephant if the call center representatives can't get the historical data they need to upsell, cross-sell or mollify the customer.

And that customer data has to be secure. (Just ask your legal office or chief privacy officer, if you have any doubts.) As companies slowly move to IP storage, the industry must figure out how to protect IP storage from hackers (internal and external) without degrading performance too much.

Keeping hackers out is one way to protect data, but the events of Sept. 11, 2001, vividly demonstrated how data could be obliterated in an instant. The term disaster recovery is now driving many storage projects, as companies replicate data at two locations in case one goes down.

That's why data storage is moving from an unglamorous back-office function to the top tier of the CIO agenda.

Mitch Betts is director of Computerworld's Knowledge Centers.

Cheap & Secure Data Stores

Stories in this report:

Data Center

Mitch Betts is an executive editor at IDG Enterprise. He was previously executive editor of CIO and Computerworld magazines.

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