4 Tips for Tech Companies Looking to Enhance Data Protection
Data protection’s importance has only increased over the past few years. More IT experts are well aware of the dangers associated with poor storage and recovery, taking action to make their network less vulnerable. There are dozens of ways that your own company can reduce its chances of experiencing the consequences of limited protection, but many of them are particular to the type of data being stored as well as the method chosen for storage. The following tips, however, can serve as general rules of thumb, regardless of your selected form of data protection. A bit of extra preparation and research can help make critical business information more secure than ever before.
1. Prioritize data before updating your protections
Unfortunately, all tech budgets come with limitations. Trying to update every piece of information in your system with the same protections could put a severe drain on your expenses or create scenarios where your most critical business info is left with insufficient defenses. These situations can be avoided by taking an inventory of all the data assets your company owns and ranking them holistically according to their necessity for day-to-day operations. Likewise, information that must be archived for compliance reasons should be tagged as such and given high deference when storage funds are being distributed.
Depending on the nature of a company’s clients and main source of revenue, the type of business data identified as “most critical” could differ wildly from one firm to the next. What’s important is that you and your IT staff devote appropriate resources to data protection based on a careful examination of your network.
2. Be sure to closely evaluate software and storage vendors
In some cases, you’ll need extra support to provide your data with the protection it needs. Regardless of which direction you go to supplement your current data asset management strategy, remember to put a software company or storage vendor through a detailed vetting process before agreeing to sign a contract, said CIO. Your data is priceless, after all. It makes sense to put the extra time and effort into ensuring the solution of your choice has a solid track record.
When it comes to working with storage vendors, be sure to review their credentials as well as their portfolio of satisfied customers. Likewise, study user reviews of software designed to streamline the asset management process to make sure the application meets your company’s needs and can integrate easily into your IT team’s current workflow.
3. Choose a strategy that fits your technology
While sometimes the best strategy is to consolidate your storage needs under one solution, there are often cases where your data profile is so diverse that trying to manage every bit of data with one strategy becomes counterproductive. For example, if your company stores a mix of archived offline data in tapes and employee storage in the cloud, it would make sense to split your budget between improved cloud protections and software designed to track the location and status of your tapes. For example, software like AssetAware and VaultLedger can be used to successfully manage assets whether they are on-site or on their way to disposition.
4. Never underestimate the risk of a failure
One of the biggest mistakes you and your IT can make when addressing data storage protection is to underestimate the possibility of an accident or unforeseen emergency, warned NASDAQ. Undercutting data asset management merely puts your company at greater risk, so keeping worst-case scenarios at the top of your mind is a prudent strategy. You never know when a nasty weather phenomenon and compliance check can come back-to-back. It always pays to be prepared.