Data Center

How to Solve Top Challenges in Data Storage

More data means more storage challenges. Here’s how the right solution can help.

Doug Bonderud is an award-winning writer capable of bridging the gap between complex and conversational across technology, innovation and the human condition.

Data volumes aren’t just growing, they’re accelerating and diversifying. According to recent research from IDG, data professionals say that data volumes are growing by 63 percent per month on average in their organizations. Most of these companies are also drawing data from 400 sources or more; 20 percent of respondents say their business has over 1,000 data sources.

The result is a growing need for reliable, scalable storage. In an IT landscape informed by evolving compliance, agility and sustainability requirements, however, companies need technologies capable of more than just storing data. Here’s a look at three of the top challenges in data storage, and how the right solutions can help.

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The Top Three Challenges in Data Storage

While more data means more opportunities for analytics and insight, the sheer volume of data collected and stored by companies also creates challenges. Three of the most pressing are security, complexity and efficiency.

EXPLORE: How growing businesses can improve data storage performance.

With cyberattacks a matter of when, not if, companies need storage security frameworks that focus on cyber resilience. According to Ben Jastrab, director of storage product marketing at Dell Technologies, “this is such a big topic, and such an important one. Every company in every industry is worried.” Using a zero-trust framework based on principles of least privilege and advanced detection technologies can help companies pinpoint storage attacks and minimize the damage done.
Increased complexity also is a challenge for storage. From purchasing, maintaining and replacing physical hardware to implementing, monitoring and upgrading storage software, it’s easy for IT teams to get stuck in the status quo. “Companies have more things to manage than ever,” says Jastrab. “To make the most of storage, they need to automate operations.”
More data and less time. Higher costs and lower returns. Bigger expectations and smaller pools of skilled staff. These common challenges share a unifying thread: efficiency. If companies can improve the efficiency of storage solutions, they’ll be better equipped to navigate the evolving storage landscape. “Everyone is asked to do more with less these days, but hiring enough skilled IT staff is a challenge,” Jastrab says. He also highlights the rising costs of energy: “Over the past 12 to 18 months, these costs have increased significantly. Companies are looking to modernize their data storage to reduce footprint, power and cooling costs.”

Consider recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which predicts that wholesale electricity prices will be 20 percent to 60 percent higher this winter than in 2022. As storage volumes skyrocket, companies need a way to minimize physical footprints and reduce energy costs.

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The Right Equipment Can Solve a Company’s Biggest Storage Problems

Businesses are better equipped to address these challenges when they have the right storage equipment.

When it comes to efficiency, for example, companies can benefit from the increased workload performance of Dell PowerStore 3.0., which offers up to 50 percent more input/output operations per second, 66 percent higher capacity, and 10 times faster copy operations. Combined with self-optimizing processes and built-in artificial intelligence, businesses can get the most from their storage — and spend less keeping the lights on.

From a complexity standpoint, PowerStore helps streamline operations with the ability to modernize in place with all-inclusive software and Anytime Upgrade updates that offer a true cloud-like experience. PowerStore also offers comprehensive ransomware protection, file locking and array theft protection and is fully compliant with Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2.

Storage volumes, velocity and variety are growing exponentially. The result is a paradox. As Jastrab points out, even as some companies shift away from on-premises data storage, others realize they need a mix of cloud and on-prem storage, PowerStore can help companies get the best of both worlds with onsite, all-flash storage that’s energy efficient, automatically upgradable, and natively secure.

UP NEXT: How AI and ML are accelerating our access to data.

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