Enterprise Data Storage Essay

Data Storage is generally divided into two; one is customer storage, which only uses typical disk drives, flash drives or local hard disk in PC or in laptop. While Enterprise Data Storage is the mainly use for large enterprise storage for big industry or company. The data that is being stored in this centralize storage comes from a variety of source, it can either come from customer transactions, that can come from the different parts of the globe, it can also include local data storage for development purposes, like these storage can hold data samples for integration testing and Users Acceptance Testing by both the development team and the customers respectively. Enterprise Data Storage is much prevalent in huge data centers, where amount of data running around the clock and these data are carefully stored and even backup properly. Data in these call centers is the most important one, more than anything, like the transaction report that happen between the customers and the call center agent, which in every end of each transaction, it will be stored in central database, where another team will automatically gets the information based on certain business process of the system, to actually addressed the issue, and so on and so forth. So this means that data in call centers are interconnected to many groups and that is why not even a small downtime is acceptable in their operation. To better implement effective enterprise data storage, there are four important factors must be considered: (1) storage, (2) backup, (3) archiving and (4) disaster recovery. In storage, this means that there should be enough storage capacity for all the transaction needed to run for all the entire systems and with ideal buffer systems in case there will be immediate need for additional space, next one is backup, it is already a common to all industries whether it is running in one server or in enterprise large type, backup plays a vital role in enterprise data storage, it does not only mean that regularly, based on scheduled task by the infrastructure team that the system will automatically backup it every 12MN of every day, but most importantly the importance of backup is to provide confidence to the company that data and information can be rolled back anytime if needed. Archiving is somehow, is something important for keeping both historical information, actually archiving does not work like as backup, archiving only happens in a certain period agreed by the management, and at this point not everything is being archived only those of high risk informat ion are being archived. Lastly, Disaster Recovery, these is also one of the most important use of enterprise data storage, that is to give confidence to the management and the whole company itself, that the company can still perform and no expectation of stop operation will happen, if problems encountered in the systems used by the company or faced with some unexpected events like fire, earthquakes, etc. (Enterprise Data Storage, n. d. ). Data Storage Industry and where it is going Data Storage Industries have earlier predicted that there are five most important information management and data storage trends for 2006. The first one was compliance; compliance talks more on the process side on how technically and procedurally things should be done, in order to avoid misbehavior of the company systems. It also provides a better deal of quality and reliability for the system to work better, since there are already set guidelines, and these guidelines where set after a series of study made and those where also the important input to the compliancy requirements of each processes, that is why if everything will just be followed according to plan, there should be no problem. Secondly, is Security, you can say it can be both physical and data security, for physical security these are the tangible component of your data systems, from the smallest valued mouse or keyboard up to the most critical enterprise servers that you keep in the company, which is important to secure these physical component of your company systems. Data security is still one of the most prevalent problems nowadays, with network access given to everyone, which definitely needs anyway in performing their job, there will still be problems about data security, the only way to combat this problem is to have a constant monitoring daily, actually if possible there should be either systems that will monitor this problems like firewalls, data encryption systems, and even tailored made mapping system fro each users or teams must be strictly be applied. Third, is Integrated backup, here it is simply better backup procedure and archival must be well implemented, like better naming convention and other systematic practices must be applied, Fourth is Virtualization, which also one of the top priority in 2006, this actually means the implementation of state of the art network system that will provide a smooth and faster networking from all the different locations where the company is operating, factors like bandwidth, virtual memory and transfer rate of speed, which is vital in transferring data within the network. Lastly is ECM or Enterprise Content Management, which continues to be one of the biggest challenge to all industry or company, because here we are actually looking at the importance of documentation and keeping it within the company systems, from the simplest how the different systems works, customer manual and up to company policies and procedures that in order to have a better grip of their job, these should be well stored in central repository and from there anyone can easily gets it through the network. (Top Five Information Management & Storage Trends for 2006, n. d. ). Actually, Enterprise data storage industries are continually giving big impact for the company, with the growing demand for data storage, most especially at this point we are now working globally like the existence of call centers worldwide, and that makes enterprise data storage becomes vital. Because in Data Centers, we are not only talking about one server but multiple servers running around the globe, which you can see, setup is like per country, but if you have purchased a enterprise data storage server that are really huge, the implementation can be by geographical zone, like one for Asia Pac, North America, Europe, etc. Lynx Technologies is one of the well known companies that specialize in enterprise data storage products, includes backup/recovery and business continuity implementation which is important for compliancy of the company. The main focus of the company is combining effective networking infrastructure and enterprise data storage solutions. From data storage hardware requirement, data storage management software, secure data storage. Some of the main data storage, for its disaster recovery includes on-line backup and data backup software. And lastly for its compliance service it includes HIPAA/ Sox Data Security. Limitation of local data center that only safe keeps the data storage that runs in the local network, the trend that was being look on to and continue to be a strong importance in the future is more on not only Total data Storage Backup but also must include and prepare to have the recovery solutions, which uses Enterprise Level Onsite Data Storage, and Remote Offsite Data Storage Solutions. Remote or Offsite data storage is one of the best service for data storage by enterprises that works very often outside their company network, and since you are detached and you need to be connected to your company network, this product provides you immediate access and with that, because of the speed of transfer on your data, it can provide your customer and yourself better appreciation on the system. It is also a very cost effective solution for all business partners, staffs and other stakeholders because they can easily work even not connected to their local company network. And with the big capacity and networking efficiency of this solution, which is the most critical part of the business at this time. In the future, what the industry looks onto is more on convenience and accessibility is being look onto, where people can work at home and students can attend to open university, and with that they only need to securely connect online through wireless connection and from there they can easily get a grip of the information needed. Upon using online data storage or remote data storage, it will not just easily be implemented right away because there should be compliance check on this before it will be implemented. The compliance is being conducted by HIPPA or Sarbanes Oxley. The following major impact to the industry is reliable and immediate availability to data and information in different strategic location, as well as easy deployment of application for the target customer. (Enterprise Level Onsite (Online) Data Storage, & Remote Offsite Data Storage Solutions, n. d. ). HP also has provided a good support on the future requirement of enterprise data storage. HP it is the primary storage or data deduplication will be the future of most industry. Active research and study for these technology movers in the future of data storage is being conducted at the company, and this will be the common data storage trend for all data storage industry in 2009-2010. Alongside with it there will also be encryption process that would separately take place, which will also be the part of the feature for data storage on the future. Another HP prediction is the integration of its high end applications with data storage, meaning putting their application on a high scale level. Specific integration like in search engines for faster processing. And since data warehousing is also gaining popularity and great acceptance by most companies at the present the need for scalable data storage will also be an immediate need, because having to implement that would make presentation and downloading of reports in a front end-system like with that of using portal technology will be faster and easy. Since the creation of application, development of databases and managing business intelligence tool and datawarehosuing will be in one very powerful enterprise data storage also includes the effective implementation of networking infrastructure, you can say that customers will no longer ask for more and sure enough satisfaction rating will really be high. (Pariseau, Beth, 2007). Next is CISCO, and this time, it will be how the look of a large call centers see how enterprise data storage works. Data Centers for Call Centers have greatly impacted the change in the industry not only storage requirements, which obviously increasing, but almost every factors in Information Technology it is impacted a lot. Actually there are two important aspects, Technology applied, and Data Centers Storage and Servers. To start with, Technology applied, for CISCO as one of the most well known and trusted name in their field, the implementation of VOIP, which makes it very effective and convenient in combining data and voice in one cable. One of its products SRST or Survival Remote Site Telephony which is used to protect the voice in case of server network failure. Data Centers Storage and Servers, in a typical data center, it is actually almost different types of server and data storage running for a typical call center that runs global support. For SAN or Storage Area Network, Most of the well trusted storage used is EMC and HP. The data center has production servers, where all application is installed for the customer to use and access. It also connects to hundreds of host to their data storage server. Which means that, many applications on the web or in client server applications that are being hosted by the enterprise data storage server and with that the enterprise data storage server hold critical data which all of the application gets and stored or even backup. The SAN is made up of CISCO’s MDS multi layer switches. SAN has greatly improve and utilize the storage resource. And, since it is used for large data centers, with multiple servers, it hold 2 Petabytes or a huge 2 quadrillion bytes of data, which even the numbers are hard to count. With this capacity you can say that it is a good example and direction for all enterprise data storage industries should be. Another one is the Tape Backup Storage, this is used for backup of important and necessary records or data. It’s primary purpose if to be on standby backup. This is actually designed to support the critical systems, that whenever there will be problem in the main site, this will be placed as the data storage to be used. (Data Center Storage and Servers, 2004).