The storage, securement, access and management of increasing volumes of data will mark 2012 in the technology sector, managed online backup and disaster recovery services provider KeepItSafe predicts.
This increase in the amount of data also means the use of USB sticks for data storage will decrease as businesses become more aware of the risks that can come with using the devices.
USB sticks are small and portable, and thus they can easily end up lost or stolen. A study by IT security and data protection company Sophos also revealed that two-thirds of 50 USB sticks found on Australian public transport were infected with malware and contained unencrypted information about their former owners.
Therefore, KeepItSafe said, the virtualisation of servers and desktops will increase as companies will need to adjust their storage systems to accommodate the growing amount of data they produce.
“It will become impossible for service providers to continue to manage storage requirements with traditional local storage,” said Eoin Blacklock, managing director, KeepItSafe. “This will force the natural evolution to disaster-recovery solutions and data backup to the cloud. This shift will not only be seen among large enterprises but also among SMBs.
“All companies will need to seek out flexible, scalable and affordable storage options that can grow with their businesses, putting data back up high up on the agenda for 2012.”
Tape is becoming increasingly unreliable and is falling out of favour with many organisations, Blacklock added.
Technology research and advisory firm Gartner found that 71pc of all backup tape restores fail.
The move away from tape can also benefit businesses financially, according to EMC Ireland’s country manager Jason Ward.
“Businesses and public-sector organisations can dramatically cut costs and become leaner by getting rid of tape, which is cumbersome and vulnerable to security breaches,” Ward said.
“By moving to a disk-based solution, staff in an office can be released for other duties and third-party tape management costs eliminated.”
