By: Craig Badrick on August 9th, 2018

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How to Choose the Perfect Data Storage Solution for Your Enterprise's Needs

Enterprise

How to Choose the Perfect Data Storage Solution for Your Enterprise's NeedsIT pros must recognize their need for more robust data storage to remain competitive in an increasingly data-dense future. Future-proof your enterprise’s data storage infrastructure and choose the right solution for your business’ needs.

No matter how you look at them, the prevailing trends indicate that yesterday’s storage solutions will not be equipped to handle tomorrow’s data demands.

Worldwide data production continues to mushroom. Over 90% of the data in the world was generated in the past two years alone, and over 2.5 quintillion bytes are produced daily.

The drivers of this exponential growth are well-established: rich media platforms, improved networking speeds, and more advanced devices have created a growing need to store large media files, like videos. The advent of edge computing and the Internet of Things are demanding more and more enterprise bandwidth, to say nothing of the robust enterprise software that many businesses must support in order to do business on a daily basis.

To combat increasingly pernicious malware, cyberthreats, and blunt force data breaches, businesses are implementing increasingly data-intensive network security solutions, data backups, and data redundancy. For companies who haven’t started to rethink their data storage processes, however, it’s difficult to know where to begin and what to look for in a solution.

As enterprises today try to choose the data storage solutions that will meet tomorrow’s high demands, they’ll first need to take stock of what their needs actually are and decide what features are really important to them. Whether it’s Direct-Attached Storage (DAS), Network-Attached Storage (NAS), a Storage Area Network (SAN), Public/Private Cloud Storage, or some combination of the lot, there’s a solution right-sized for your enterprise.

 

The No-Frills Solution for the SMB

For small-to-medium-sized businesses prioritizing simplicity, a turn-key, “set-it-and-forget-it” fiber channel storage area network is the best choice. Customers who aren’t looking for all the bells and whistles and don’t need an extensive service-level agreement can still enjoy best-in-class performance and all the application-accelerating benefits of flash storage with a low-maintenance SAN solution like HPE MSA.

These affordable, consolidated, flexible, shared storage platforms allow growing SMBs to add additional storage and flash when it’s needed — and not a moment before.

 

The Integrated Solution for the Forward-Thinking Enterprise

For forward-thinking enterprises with multiple offices and remote locations that need data mobility, flexible access, and converged storage environments, a VM-centric data management platform is the obvious choice. Organizations that find themselves constantly running into the problems associated with infrastructure silos can enable faster delivery across multiple discrete work environments with remote office IT and virtual machines.

With built-in backup and disaster recovery, game-changing data efficiency, and near-infinite scalability, SimpliVity offers a solution that mitigates the potential downsides of virtual storage by placing the IT infrastructure below the hypervisor. The result is lower upfront costs, greater operational efficiency, and improved performance.

 

The Streamlined Solution for the IT Pro

For IT pros that need both the performance of dedicated all-flash storage and robust access to public cloud hooks, a hybrid storage solution like Nimble Storage is the way to go. It leverages predictive analytics to optimize for speed and storage health by dynamically deploying workloads across local and cloud-based storage.

Nimble is perfect for modestly-sized IT teams at larger businesses doing multi-cloud management, orchestration, and network automation who need global visibility across distributed storage networks along with failsafe reliability. It’s a streamlined hybrid solution that offers a nice balance of features, power, and simplicity.

 

The Power Solution for the Established Data Center

Big enterprises and data centers with large, dedicated in-house IT teams are looking for feature-rich composable storage solutions with flexible tier performance, scale, and resilience. And they’re increasingly looking to upgrade legacy hardware to flash, future-proof their infrastructure, and implement advanced IT protocols like automated provisioning.

Flash-optimized dedicated storage arrays like 3PAR StoreServ are designed to provide cost-efficiency, density, and raw speed. They also offer advanced features like unified file and block storage and cross-stack analytics for multi-tenant workloads.

 

Find Your Data Storage Solution: Consult an IT Expert

Enterprises looking to invest in new data storage solutions have a lot to consider. That’s why many choose to consult with a trusted IT advisor like Turn-Key Technologies (TTI).

TTI has been designing, implementing, and managing enterprise-level data storage solutions for over two decades. Whether you’re an SMB, or a large enterprise or data center, TTI’s seasoned team of experts has the knowledge and experience to help your business choose the data storage solution that best fits your needs.