Common Enterprise Storage mistakes and how to avoid them

Some mistakes are understandable, painless, and easy to correct. But others can be harmful enough to put your company on the path to failure – especially if left unaddressed. Here are the examples of com­mon storage mistakes and how you can avoid them.

Undervaluing the role visibility plays in today’s digital environment

• Dynamic visibility tools combined with a Fiber Channel-based storage fabric can give you the ability to rapidly troubleshoot current or looming problem areas.

• Embracing an open, programmable, software-based architecture also provides the flexibility to quickly integrate network visibility tools without limiting the ability to scale your infrastructure. With greater visibility, you can harness network data to improve the customer ex­perience, reduce network outages, enhance security, and create new revenue streams.

Failing to recognize the need for scalability and seamless integration

• Many companies are rapidly deploy­ing new flash apps – often in “side deployments” – as well as hyper-con­verged solutions (HCI) from emerg­ing providers. These solutions per­form great in small environments with minimal IT staff. 

• However, when these solutions are deployed in a real data center, scalability and protection will ultimately surface as primary challenges. While it’s easy to get hung up on the latest technol­ogy, you must be able to understand application capabilities and where these new tools fit – or don’t.

• While perceived ease of use and low IT resource needs are often the driv­ers for new technology, significant problems creep up when it comes to scaling, and more importantly when it comes time to integrate data stored within HCI environments.

• Bottom line: These types of solutions are not integrated into most storage networks today. And they do not have the other tools, like backup or DR apps, that are critical for the important data.

Ignoring the need for timely network upgrades

• Storage and server refreshes are not optional in today’s ever-evolv­ing business environment. A new network is needed to keep up with the rate of change at both the AFA/NVMe end and the compute-densi­ty end. 

• The requirement for 24/7 flawless performance is a new reality, with increasing workloads translating into the need to seam­lessly maintain the infrastructure that runs at optimal levels. 

• When you’re constantly focused on adding the next solution, it’s easy to lose sight of the foundation’s health. In these situations, the network can quickly become the weak link, diminishing the potential successes of any other solution added to the mix.

• Without undergoing a true rip-and-replace network rebuild, embracing a software-defined environment empowers faster application deploy­ment while setting the stage for continued movement toward a truly agile architecture.

Not having a document retention schedule

• Keeping excess records is always a problem. If documents are sit­ting around after their usable life it can create a treasure trove of information that should have been destroyed but instead is now a large liability. 

• A retention schedule will help your business keep records that are re­quired by law or best practice while helping get rid of documents that are pasts their useful life and are now a liability.

Keeping records on site

• Storing important records on site within the walls of your business is a risky proposition. Most businesses are not built with the security that is necessary to protect sensitive infor­mation from criminal behavior.

• Off-site document storage facilities provide the security necessary to protect your documents while also providing the necessary access to your documents.Assuming your documents are backed up regularly Document management solutions seek to provide insurance against the fact that your paper documents are easily destroyed. 

• Many compa­nies get in the rut of thinking that their documents are automatically backed up by their document man­agement provider without verifying that the backup is actually occurring on a regular basis.

• If anything were to ever happen and the backup was not actually occurring when it was supposed to, valuable data will be lost. Check out some tips for ensuring your backup records remain safe.

Using external storage devices

• With computer memory capacity getting larger and larger, external storage devices have become more and more popular for backing up data. The problem with backing up data on external storage devices like USB drives and external hard drives is that they can easily be stolen or lost.

• Using a cloud document manage­ment system will allow the storage necessary but still, allow you access like it is on an external storage device.