Medium-sized companies are (statistically) neither start-ups nor corporations, have been in business for a long time, are responsible for hundreds of employees - and are an important pillar of the German economy and society. Constant change and sustainability are not empty phrases, but pure necessity for long-term success. Even with the secure storage of data outside the cloud.
When it comes to storage IT, the same questions keep coming up: Where and how do I store my data – and with what solution? In addition to technical details, it is about availability, flexibility and trust.
Where do I store my data?
Many medium-sized companies are in the process of progressive digitization. Long-established processes and systems are becoming "as a service" solutions (aaS) and make a lot of demands on companies and employees. A few years ago, there was a trend towards getting rid of as much of the IT infrastructure as possible locally and – like the software – also moving “to the cloud”. The advantages of such offers are obvious: easily and flexibly scalable, no separate infrastructure or hardware required and therefore little or no upfront investment.
Nevertheless, a counter-trend can be observed lately, the so-called “unclouding”. Contrary to many assumptions, aaS offers add up to considerable sums, which is predictably more expensive than investing in your own solutions, especially for solutions that are necessary in the long term, such as storage space for data backup and archiving. aaS offers can only demonstrate their flexibility in the case of heavily fluctuating or unpredictably growing amounts of data.
Managed storage is more secure than outsourcing data to the cloud
But there is also the problem of availability. Data stored by cloud service providers not only depends on the actual operator, but also on the connection. In the event of a cyber attack, all connections to the "outside" should be cut first, which prevents access to the data. Data in your own server room or data center, on the other hand, is always available.
For these reasons, many manufacturers offer their storage solutions as "Managed Storage", "Storage as a Service" or with "Cloud Experience". This offer combines the advantages of the availability of local storage (on-premises) with flexibility in billing and the outsourcing of the operating expenses of hosted storage solutions. The customer can usually choose variable investment and per-use shares and use depreciation advantages.
How do I save my data?
For a long time, a simple data backup strategy was sufficient: first copy on a RAID, second copy on a tape. With increasing amounts of data and the increase in ransomware attacks, such approaches are a thing of the past. For various reasons, the promise of "everything in the cloud" usually doesn't work either. The lack of guaranteed access to the most important data for operation and the enormously increasing costs over time speak against a cloud-only strategy.
In the meantime, the topic of data backup has to be reconsidered from a recovery point of view:
- Which part of the data is absolutely necessary for immediate business operations and therefore requires local, high-performance backup?
- Which part is essential for the survival of the company, but does not always have to be immediately available?
- Which part needs special protection and must not fall into the wrong hands under any circumstances?
Only after the exact qualification of the data can one search for the right technology.
Old backup solutions do not allow for quick recovery
Some solutions that were previously regarded as suitable backup media at the lowest cost no longer meet the requirements for fast, reliable recoveries. In general, it has been shown that saving in the wrong place can ultimately lead to enormous additional costs: The biggest cost item after a cyber attack is the time it takes for the company to be able to act again. Reliable storage systems that protect data from being attacked and keep it available quickly are the best investment for IT managers.
Depending on the requirements, costs can also be saved with professional storage systems. Not all data requires expensive flash arrays. Reliable disk storage with a high level of security (preferably several options for immutability) is the right choice for most of the data. High flexibility in configuration and scalability are essential. A connection should definitely be possible as a file but also as an object memory.
Who do I entrust my data to?
99,99 percent availability. Unassailable. Highest customer satisfaction. Manufacturers and suppliers advertise you with superlatives. Ultimately, the decision is about trust – most of these statements cannot be verified.
The diversity of medium-sized companies means that the expertise in companies is different when it comes to IT security and IT technologies. However, the responsibility for data security can only be outsourced to a limited extent. In the end, it doesn't help anyone if it's someone else's fault - and you're still offline for days or weeks. From a GDPR point of view, it is also no longer possible for managing directors to transfer responsibility for insufficient data protection to third parties.
Data protection and data security are top priority
This is one of the reasons why choosing the right storage solution is usually also a question of trust. This is especially true when opting for an aaS offering. You hand over a large part of the data sovereignty to a service provider and trust that access, storage and security are appropriately well protected.
It's also worth taking a closer look when choosing a local storage system. Many solutions are not specifically designed to securely store sensitive data. They also offer hardly any integrated options for protecting data against manipulation, deletion or theft. This requires a lot of extra work from the IT staff. Numerous standard systems, such as those used in the high-end consumer sector, also repeatedly attract attention with reports of critical security gaps.
Which solution is the right one now?
As so often, the lawyer's answer comes into play here: It depends. It is important that the storage solutions – most likely you will need more than one system for data backup and archiving – suit your requirements. What may sound like a truism, however, has an important background in times of increasing cyber attacks: only you know what kind of data you have and how you have to secure it, how quickly it should be available and whether it is legally correct to leave it to a service provider.
As a specialist in secure storage systems for data backup and archiving FAST LTA the clear mandate to protect your data from loss, manipulation and misuse. Thousands of customers from the healthcare, municipal and industrial sectors have trusted Silent Cubes and Silent Bricks for over 15 years.
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About FAST LTA the FAST LTA is the specialist for secure secondary and long-term storage systems. The combination of durable and low-maintenance hardware, integrated software for data backup and on-site maintenance contracts with a term of up to 10 years ensure long-term, cost-effective storage of data from archive and backup applications. In-house developments such as local erasure coding, sealing using hardware WORM and efficient energy management help medium-sized customers to protect themselves against data loss through ransomware attacks and misconfiguration and to meet regulatory and legal requirements (GDPR). The Munich provider's solutions have proven themselves in thousands of installations in healthcare, public administration, film/TV/video and industry.