10 Benefits of Data Lifecycle Management in an Active Archive Solution
Data is the lifeblood of organizations today and knowing how to manage and store that data is proving to be one of the most challenging tasks for IT professionals. The cost of secondary storage hardware has been declining year over year and is projected to continue to drop in price for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the cost of traditional data management software required to move data from the Primary Tier to lower-cost storage has been increasing. It’s not uncommon to see data management software cost more than the storage medium on a per-capacity basis. This positions current solutions as cost multipliers rather than cost reducers.
That’s why in 2021, the market will see an increased focus around storage lifecycle management and active archive solutions that will reduce the total cost of storage while ensuring that all data is accessible all the time. No longer will organizations need to fully redesign their storage infrastructures to implement storage lifecycle management software solutions. Once a storage lifecycle management strategy is implemented, organizations can realize many of the benefits outlined below:
Reduce Primary Storage Costs
Organizations need a solution which reduces primary storage costs in hardware, software and storage licensing. A reduction in expensive primary storage will also lead to less administrative and maintenance costs for the primary storage support and allow IT administrators to be more productive in organizing and managing their infrastructure. A thoughtful reduction in primary storage will create a more organized, mission-critical primary storage infrastructure.
Reduce Backups
As the size of an organization’s primary storage is reduced, daily, weekly and monthly backups or replication snapshots will also be smaller, leading to shorter backup windows, reduced backup storage costs, and faster recovery from disaster.
Improve Primary Storage Performance
Leaving only the mission-critical and important data on the primary storage systems will lead to more free space on the system, resulting in higher performance for active data. A lean primary storage system will deliver more value to its users by eliminating unnecessary search results and improving a user’s ability to browse and interact quickly with important data.
Free up Budget to Move to all Flash for Primary Tier
By removing inactive data from the Primary Tier of storage, an organization can now more affordably upgrade to a high-performance primary storage tier that uses SSD, NVMe, or other cutting-edge high-performance technologies.
Seamlessly Extend Primary Storage
With data management software, a user’s access to primary storage can be preserved while capitalizing on lower-cost secondary and archive storage. Historically, files and projects which are backed up or archived require an IT administrator to work with a user to identify and restore the file(s). Data management software extends the access of primary storage to a secondary tier of storage, often made up of spinning disk, tape and cloud, enabling users to easily restore any files or directories that exist on that tier from their local work machine.
Make Disaster Recovery Copies of Data
A storage software that is capable of managing files should not be limited to simply moving a file from one storage location to another – it should also allow users to make copies of any data files for disaster recovery purposes. True data management software can not only save an organization money and capacity on primary storage but can also provide data management tools for offsite replication and disaster recovery (DR).
Incorporate the Cloud
Data management software supports various workflows to allow organizations to better utilize the cloud. Inactive data can be moved to the cloud for more cost-effective storage. Data moved to the cloud can also be used for sharing with other groups and for use in cloud workflows, such as in transcoding and artificial intelligence (AI) tagging.
Responsive Data
Data management software not only moves data from primary storage for cost-saving purposes, but it also helps to ensure that data is located on the appropriate storage medium at the right time. Data management software will manage multiple copies of data and ensure that at least one data copy is stored in a location that is convenient and appropriate to a user’s needs.
Scheduled Delete
Users should have the ability to configure automatic deletions of data migrated/stored by a project after the data management software retains it for a specified number of days. Users should get email notifications about pending deletions days before data is deleted.
Gain Insight Into Your Data
With data management software, users are able to understand the patterns and trends in their data and gain additional insights to help drive business and storage decisions. In an active archive environment, having insight across all tiers of data is critical and is at the center of an active archive solution.
With a solid data lifecycle management strategy, organizations can modernize their storage workflows and derive numerous benefits. From operational efficiencies to cost savings, from leveraging cutting-edge technology to activating an active archive, data management software can bring insight and knowledge to data and provide value to any organization.
