Cloud

Dell Tech World: Data Protection Considerations for a Multicloud Environment

With data being stored across a variety of environments, protection has become more important than ever.

Joe Kuehne is an Associate Editorial Director at BizTech magazine.

Given the requirements of a nearly all-remote workforce during the pandemic, it’s no surprise that cloud adoption has greatly increased over the past 14 months. Cloud storage provides agility, speed and scalability that should be attractive to any organization.

“Cloud providers offer hundreds of services designed to provide customers instant access to almost any kind of technology that they need, and costs are incurred only when the services are used, usually with no upfront charges or commitments,” said James Stout, senior systems engineer for data protection at Dell Technologies. “This model has made cloud services easy to consume and explains why the transition to cloud has only accelerated.”

Speaking at this year’s Dell Technologies World, Stout said the accelerated move to cloud has its challenges as well as its benefits. An organization with data in the cloud must contend with portability issues and compliance questions, as well as costs. Those challenges can be multiplied when spreading data across multiple cloud providers.

“There's little consistency when it comes to management and pricing. Data that’s easy to upload in one cloud service provider is often difficult or costly to move to another. Most importantly, ensuring your valuable data is protected from modern threats and recoverable at all times has proven to be a daunting task for most organizations,” Stout said.

Data Mobility Has Taken On Greater Importance

Organizations should choose a cloud strategy that makes the most sense for their business. Cloud adoption could include private, public, hybrid and multicloud architectures. In every case, however, the choice must allow you to maintain control over your data.

Stout recommended Dell’s PowerProtect DD series because it offers “ultraefficient replication technologies, by which users can move data to the cloud, from the cloud or between cloud providers faster than other methods, while drastically reducing network requirements.”

PowerProtect DD offers data mobility, which means “you have complete control over your data and where it’s protected to, and you choose when, where and how your data is going to be used,” Stout said.

A Multicloud Strategy Must Offer Workload Protection

Because data mobility has become so important for multicloud organizations, Dell has added increased capabilities that allow customers to take advantage of the scale and power of PowerProtect appliances in the cloud for protecting workloads and mobilizing data across a multicloud footprint.

Stout also presented Faction services for PowerProtect, which offer “the latest-generation physical appliances hosted in specialized cloud data centers throughout the globe with direct connectivity into AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle cloud.” He said the service is ideal for customers who have requirements to protect, store or replicate cloud data offsite while having landline connectivity to their cloud provider.

Governance Requirements Can Offer Another Challenge

“Another big challenge in the race to embrace multicloud is operational consistency and adhering to data governance requirements,” Stout said.

Many organizations find themselves saddled with significant administrative burdens because they’ve spread their data across multiple cloud solutions. In cases where the data is handled by different business units, meeting compliance requirements for protection, storage and retention can be overwhelming, eventually getting in the way of digital transformation efforts.

“Eliminating this barrier to cloud adoption not only requires a provider that can protect across your multicloud landscape but one that can be dynamically deployed and managed using full-scale automation,” he said. “Dell EMC data protection offers capabilities that can be deployed and managed through virtually any automation framework and programmatically deployed across a multicloud footprint, rapidly enabling data protection while ensuring standards are enforced.”

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