HYBRID IT - COHESITY

Now there is data in the data center, data at edge locations used by remote offices, data on mobile devices, and data in the cloud. And when a business has data in the cloud, it usually doesn’t mean just one cloud.

The chances are high that there is also data in SaaS applications, such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and other applications, clouds, and systems. Organisations are increasingly adopting hybrid multicloud strategies, meaning some of the data might live on AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure.

All this signals the need for a new approach to data management, a next-gen solution -- one that gives the power of choice to an organisation to design a data management strategy that best meets its unique business needs. At the same time, the entire process of data management must be simplified. The era of multiple legacy point solutions to handle a company’s data needs cannot meet the needs of a modern enterprise that must manage, protect, and derive business value from its data to compete and succeed.

Understand That Distributed Data Creates New Mobility and Security Implications

When data lives in many different places, there are several implications.

Firstly, the organisation needs to address data logistics – or how to get data from one place to another. In some cases, this means moving data to the cloud. But sometimes, the organisation may want to repatriate data, which involves moving data back from the cloud.

Additionally, one must rethink their approach to security. When all of the data lived in the data center, it could be protected with a hard perimeter. But because data is now everywhere, the security model must change and adopt zero trust principles.

Now, organisations must manage data everywhere in a way that is efficient and effective. The data management approach should start with protecting and backing up data. This will enable an organisation to recover in the event of an outage or a ransomware attack, which is growing at an alarming rate.

Take Responsibility Rather Than Assuming That Data In The Cloud Is Safe

It’s easy to think that when data is in the cloud it is automatically protected. But that’s not always the case. For example, just because Microsoft 365 implementation is in the cloud, it doesn’t mean Microsoft can bring back data if things go wrong. Microsoft 365 retains customer content for 30 days at most.

Microsoft, Google, and AWS may offer guarantees related to their cloud services’ uptime and availability. But the customer is responsible for making sure its data is secure and accessible for compliance, legal, and other purposes. This is known as the cloud’s shared responsibility model. Under this model, the customer is responsible for its data – even if an employee mistakenly or intentionally deletes that data or it falls victim to ransomware or another type of cyberattack.

But SaaS and IaaS are relatively new models and not everybody operating in today’s hybrid multicloud world understands that. Likewise, many IT operations teams and other talent responsible for resiliency aren’t fully aware of the limitations and risks cloud poses when it comes to data.

Avoid Creating More Siloes By Taking A Centralised Approach

A database provider may say that its database provides native online backup. But that is a siloed approach that adds complexity from a broader operations perspective rather than enabling modernisation and simplification.

The best way to avoid silos is to implement a centralised data management solution that protects and enables the organisation to manage its data – in the cloud and on premises – using a single administrative interface.

Be Aware That As-A-Service Disaster Recovery Is An Effective Option

Using a self-managed backup solution is one option to back up all of the cloud, software-as-a-service and on-premises data, but it’s not necessarily simple, efficient or cost-effective. The next-generation of services now offer additional resiliency via disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) solutions. This provides the flexibility to choose between managing everything directly or letting the data management or DRaaS provider focus on managing the infrastructure, while the organisation focuses on the policies that will govern the data – where the value resides.

Whether choosing to manage the infrastructure directly, consume as-a-service options, or adopt a flexible hybrid approach – as more and more organisations are choosing – make sure that the data management solution addresses all of the organisation’s needs, wherever its data resides.

Consolidating “one off” solutions and adopting a next-gen data management platform approach can simplify complexity and lower the costs involved with managing data. At the same time, this approach enables an organisation to follow an operational strategy that is best for its business while helping it to avoid data mobility problems, and letting it recover faster when disaster strikes.